Multi-Disciplinary and Multi-Fidelity Evaluation of VTVL and VTHL Reusable Launch Vehicle Configurations

Abstract

For the systematic assessment of future reusable launch vehicle concepts and key technologies, multi-disciplinary and multi-fidelity analyses have to be conducted already in preliminary design phases. Within the DLR project X-TRAS, for instance, vertical takeoff vertical landing (VTVL) and vertical takeoff horizontal landing (VTHL) reusable launch vehicle concepts are compared and require a consistent and accurate evaluation of the launch vehicles' performance. In this paper, a multi-disciplinary and multi-fidelity modeling and simulation framework is introduced briefly. For a VTVL configuration, 3-DOF models are used for trajectory optimization with DLR-SR's multi-objective and multi-phase trajectory optimization package MOPS trajOpt. Additionally, the same framework is used to generate consistent multi-fidelity models ranging from 1-DOF to 6-DOF models of a winged VTHL configuration. These models are then used to estimate its moment budget for subsequent controllability studies.