Analysis of Sonic Boom Propagation and Population Disturbance of Hypersonic Vehicle Trajectories

Kurzfassung

With more future hypersonic space planes and re-entry vehicles, the topic of sonic boom shocks has a large impact on the feasibility of routine operations. Because some population overflight might be unavoidable, the sonic boom effect must be considered during the trajectory design. DLR SpaceLiner trajectories are analysed as primary reference with conventional sonic boom estimation methods and population disturbance studies after using population avoidance methodologies in the trajectory optimization. Additionally, the boom propagation is compared to reference trajectories of four vehicles: Starship, Dream Chaser, Space Rider and Aurora. This advances the methodology in estimating the sonic boom overpressure in the early design phase.