Design Constraints for High L/D Vehicles Based on Hypersonic Vehicles.

Kurzfassung

The development of payload transport into the lower earth orbit during the last 3 decades shows a disproportionate increase. In order to reduce the specific launch costs, to obtain a higher mission flexibility and mission safety as well as for environmental protection work on the next generation of space transportation systems is necessary. The investigated projects include single stage (SSTO) as well as two stage to orbit transportation systems (TSTO). Compared to SSTO vehicles the most important advantage of TSTO systems is a higher payload ratio (precent payload of total launch mass) leading to a lower sensitivity concerning design and mission parameters. Integrated predesign studies of airbreathing TSTO systems show a large sensitivity with respect to the aerodynamic efficiency L/D of the first stage. Furthermore, in hypersonic flow lift is dominated from the lower side of a configuration. With view to these.