OVERVIEW OF PAST AND CONTEMPORARY CONCEPTS FOR ORBITAL TRANSFER VEHICLES

Kurzfassung

Fully and partially reusable launchers, as well as small launchers, often suffer from limited mission flexibility due to design-driving constraints. Orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) can compensate for these limitations by expanding the range of accessible orbits. In response to the growing interest in reusable and small launchers, the number of proposed OTV concepts has also increased. Additional, proposed designs offer in-orbit services such as payload hosting, satellite inspection. This paper presents a literature-based survey of historical and contemporary concepts of orbital transfer vehicles and proposes a classification scheme. Based on this scheme the collected data is analyzed in an attempt to identify tendencies with respect to certain design choices such as primary mission to be served, operation scheme and propulsion type, amongst others. The survey shows that most OTVs are designed for Earth-bound missions, often use liquid propulsion for its versatility, and are typically launched as part of ground-based missions – frequently as kick stages.