R. Monti, R. Janovsky, R. Savino, M. De Stefano Fumo

Capsules and Shuttle-like reentry vehicles exploit mainly the drag forces to reduce their initial kinetic and potential energy. Long duration re-entry trajectories, good manoeuvrability, large downrange and crossranges, small acceleration, heat fluxes localized at the leading edges can be realized by a proper utilization of lift forces. The above characteristics point out at a winged vehicle characterized by a low wing loading and by a high aerodynamic efficiency . When reentering from planetary missions one can show that aerocapture of the vehicle is possible by properly modulating the lift force. In particular for bodies reentering from exploration missions at super-orbital velocities, a negative lift (i.e. a lift force pointing toward the centre of the Earth) allows to fly at constant high altitudes and to reduce smoothly the speed to orbital speed; below the orbital velocity a positive modulated lift force (pointing outward of the centre of the Earth) can be used to properly keep the vehicle at high altitudes, avoiding large decelerations and high heat fluxes. Examples of reentry missions from Moon are provided that follow the proposed strategy.

DGLR Symposium "To Moon and Beyond", 2007, Bremen

Conference Paper

englisch

A4, 16 Seiten

DGLR-Bericht, 2007, 2007-02, To Moon and Beyond; S.1-16; 2007; Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt - Lilienthal-Oberth e.V., Bonn

NA

Aufsatz in getr. Zählung;

Bibliothek

2007