Flight Dynamics Design and Analysis for Target Vehicles

DURATION: THREE DAYS
COURSE NO.: 5020

This is a practical course on understanding the flight dynamics of suborbital launch vehicles and approaches to their design and analysis. The course examines aerodynamic design, stability criteria, flight environments, dispersion and reentry and recovery of hardware for reflight. The integration of payloads into the vehicle design with emphasis on support systems and balance requirements will be included. The course addresses flight data analysis and interpretation and provides a wealth of lessons learned taken from unique design solutions and flight anomalies.

COURSE MATERIALS:
Include extensive notes and reference materials.

This material is designed for launch vehicle design engineers, systems engineers, project managers, and other professionals requiring a working knowledge of unguided or guided missile flight dynamics to support the successful adaptation of surplus boosters and integration of COTS rocket motors with scientific or target presentation payloads to accomplish research and target vehicle missions.

Aerodynamic analysis methods. Static stability requirements. Dynamic stability requirements. Aeroelastic load computations. Structural design requirements. Payload adaptation/integration. Wind compensation. Payload reentry and recovery. Refurbishment and reflight of flight hardware. Flight data analysis. Review of lessons learned from flights failures.

1. Introduction.
   

   Nature of the design problem. Definitions. Typical design approach.

2. Aerodynamic Design.
   

   Modeling approaches. Analytical tools. Drag computation.

3. Static Stability.
   

   Definition of rigid body versus elastic body static stability. Design criteria.

4. Dynamic Stability.
   

   Definition of dynamic stability. Roll-Pitch coupling. Criteria for sufficient stability.

5. Aeroelastic Effects.
   

   Development of aeroelastic models. Flight loads computation. Loss of static stability.

6. Wind Compensation.
   

   Wind weighting procedures. Wind sensitivity function computation. Unknown wind effects.

7. Trajectory Dispersion and Control.
   

   Dispersion sources. Dispersion mitigation approaches. Description of dispersion control techniques.

8. Payload Test Requirements.
   

   Vibration testing approach. Integrated test requirements. Static load testing. Hardware reflight testing.

9. Reentry and Recovery.
   

   High angle of attack aerodynamics. DOF reentry simulation. Recovery system design characteristics.

10. Flight Data Analysis.
    

    Performance evaluation. Flight data base development. Flight data interpretation.

11. Lessons Learned.
    

    Case studies of flight failures.