In this section, we examine the space launch needs of U.S. military, civil, and commercial space sectors. The potential development and operating costs for a small fleet of military TAVs are reviewed and compared with the costs associated with a small expendable launch vehicle. The potential development costs for commercial RLVs are also briefly reviewed. Next, we examine U.S. launch policy and...

The Ares I-X Flight Test Vehicle is the first in a series of flight test vehicles that will take the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle design from development to operational capability. The test flight is scheduled for April 2009, relatively early in the Ares I design process so that data obtained from the flight can impact the design of Ares I before its Critical Design Review. Because of the short t...

The planned Ares V launch vehicle with its 10 meter fairing shroud and 55,000 kg capacity to the Sun Earth L2 point enables entirely new classes of space telescopes. NASA MSFC has conducted a preliminary study that demonstrates the feasibility of launching a 6 to 8 meter class monolithic primary mirror telescope to Sun-Earth L2 using an Ares V. Specific technical areas studied included optical ...

The replacement of steam catapults with electromagnetic ones is becoming an overwhelming trend in aircraft launch systems. The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) offers significant benefits to the aircraft, ship, personnel, and operational capabilities. EMALS has such advantages as high thrust, good controllability, reusable, etc., as a launching motor, a double-side plate Permanent...

The main limitation of existing computational tools for continuous system reachability problems is that, due to the exponential growth of the computation with the dimension of the continuous state space, the tools can be applied effectively to relatively low dimensional problems (typically 1-4 dimensions). In this paper we adopt a two time scale approach to extend the use of continuous system r...

Intelligent Launch and Range Operations Virtual Test Bed (ILRO-VTB) is a real-time web-based command and control, communication, and intelligent simulation environment of ground-vehicie, iaunch and range operation activities. ILRO-VTB consists of a variety of simulation models combined with commercia! and indigenous sofGare devehpments (XASA AmeSj. It creates a hybrid softwarelhardware environm...

A procedure is presented to accurately model transient motions of launch vehicles associated with complex flow conditions. The flow is modeled using the Reynolds-Averaged NavierStokes equations with the one-equation Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model. An overset grid system with a curvilinear near-body grid and a Cartesian off body is used. Solution quality is assessed using grid sensitivity and...

Stage separation is a critical technical issue for developing two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) launch systems with widebody carrier aircraft that use air-breathing propulsion and launch vehicle stages that use rocket propulsion. During conceptual design phases, this issue can be addressed with a combination of engineering methods, computational fluid dynamics simulations, and trajectory analysis of th...

The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) offers significant benefits to the aircraft, ship, personnel, and operational capabilities. EMALS has such advantages as high thrust, good controllability, reusable, etc., as a launching motor, a double-side plate Permanent Magnet Linear Synchronous Motor (PMLSM) can provide high instantaneous thrust. This paper presents the design and analysis...