The goal of the NASA Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) technology program is to develop and demonstrate essential, cost-effective technologies for next-generation launch systems. The XÐ33 flight vehicle presently being developed by Lockheed-Martin is an experimental Single-Stage-to-Orbit (SSTO) demonstrator that is intended to validate critical technologies for the full-scale RLV. One of the key te...

The contribution of this paper to the space transportation system field is to select promising Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) concepts by using a formal evaluation procedure. The vehicle system is divided into design features. Every design feature can have alternative characteristics. All combinations of design features and characteristics are compared pairwise with each other. The innovation an...

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, under a cooperative agreement with NASA, will build and fly the X-33, a half-scale prototype of a rocket-based, single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO), reusable launch vehicle (RLV). A 0.007-scale model of the X-33 604B0002G configuration was tested in four hypersonic facilities at the NASA Langley Research Center to examine vehicle stability and control characteristics and t...

In the last few years, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) sponsored several research projects on a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) whose design, operation, and logistics requirements are intended to be much simpler than for the Space Shuttle. As part of these efforts, the previous researchers developed a discrete-event simulation model, called Maintenance, Integration, and Launch Pad Operat...

A review of the experimental and computational studies performed at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) to support the optimization and benchmarking of the hypersonic aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic databases for the X-33 vehicle is presented. A synoptic of the testing, computational, and analysis capabilities at LaRC applied to these studies is given. Analyses of the hypersonic aerodynamic c...

A method for solving finite-horizon optimal control of nonlinear systems has been developed in this paper and used for an online path planning problem. The new controller synthesis is motivated by the state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) technique that was developed for solving regulator and tracking problems. However, finite-time problems need to meet specified boundary conditions for the a...

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, under a cooperative agreement with NASA, will build and fly the X-33, a half-scale prototype of a rocket-based, single-stage-to-orbit (S S T O) , reusable launch vehicle (RLV). A 0.007-scale model of the X-33 604B0002G configuration was tested in four hypersonic facilities at the NASA Langley Research Center to examine vehicle stability and control characteristics a...

Advand guidance and control (AG&C) technologies are critical for meeting safety, reliability, and cost requirements for the next generation of reusable launch vehicle (RLV), whether it is fully rocket-powered or has airbreathing components. This becomes clear upon examining the number of expendable launch vehicle failures in the recent past where AG&C technologies could have saved a RLV with th...

Autonomous reusable launch vehicles (RLV) are being pursued as low-cost alternatives to expendable launch vehicles and the Shuttle. The employment of autonomous, reusable launch vehicles requires additional guidance and control robustness to fulfill the role of an adaptive human pilot, in the event of failures or unanticipated conditions. The guidance and control of these vehicles mandate new g...

Reusable launch vehicle (RLV) in the reentry process exhibit fast time-variation, strongly nonlinear and coupling characteristics, they all increase the complexity of attitude control system. After a vehicle’s mathematical model is built for the analysis of RLV movement and attitude control system design, then some operating points are selected from the trajectory and linearized. Several common...