No abstract

Airbreathing launch vehicles continue to be a subject of great interest in the space access community. In particular, horizontal takeoff and horizontal landing vehicles are attractive with their airplane-like benefits and flexibility for future space launch requirements. The most promising of these concepts involve airframe integrated propulsion systems, in which the external undersurface of the vehicle forms part of the propulsion flowpath. Combining of airframe and engine functions in this manner involves all of the design disciplines interacting at once. Design and optimization of these configurations is a most difficult activity, requiring a multi-discipline process to analytically resolve the numerous interactions among the design variables. This paper describes the design and optimization of one configuration in this vehicle class, a lifting body with turbine-based low-speed propulsion. The integration of propulsion and airframe, both from an aero-propulsive and mechanical perspective are addressed. This paper primarily focuses on the design details of the preferred configuration and the analyses performed to assess its performance. The integration of both low-speed and high-speed propulsion is covered. Structural and mechanical designs are described along with materials and technologies used. Propellant and systems packaging are shown and the mission-sized vehicle weights are disclosed. Nomenclature

No abstract

No abstract

BACKGROUND NASA's Next Generation Launch Technology (NGLT) program is developing and maturing advanced propulsion technologies, vehicle systems technologies, and flight vehicle concepts to enable development of safer and more economic future launch systems. Figure 1 illustrates the NGLT role in NASA's Integrated Space Transportation Plan. Within NGLT, NASA is developing advanced air breathing propulsion systems and demonstrating these systems in hypersonic flight vehicles. The flight demonstrations are necessary to validate these technologies and advance the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) to TRL=6, making them ready for application to future space launch vehicles and other hypersonic flight systems.