Design and analysis on dropping trajectories of RLV configuration

The flight trajectories of a RLV(reusable launch vehicles) configuration were designed and the flight dynamics were analyzed along the trajectories. The whole flight process was divided into four phases as the S-turn phase to dissipate extreme energy, the acquisition phase to turn the vehicle for the HAC (heading alignment cylinder), the HAC tracking phase to head the vehicle for the runway and the pre-final approach phase to fit the vehicle to landing. The trajectories were further adjusted at checking windows. The dynamics of the configuration was then analyzed in terms of the sensitivity, control and stability along the trajectories for the navigation and control law design. The results show that the established trajectory design method works well with satisfactory precisions, while the designed trajectories tend to be more sensitive to the lower frequency disturbances than high frequency disturbances.