Design and development of single-stage-to-orbit vehicles

A procedure to guide the conceptual design of a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle is presented. Modeling based on historical databases is used to help define plausible flight trajectories and vehicle aerodynamics and to evaluate candidate propulsion cycles. Two conceptual configurations are introduced to examine the sensitivity of vehicle drag, engine cycle selection, and design characteristics on the amount of propellant required to accelerate to orbit. Results show that the choice of the optimum low-speed engine cycle, combined with the ram-scamjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) at high speed, is very sensitive to the engine air capture and vehicle drag coefficient at transonic speeds. For nominal drag and air capture characteristics, the high thrust and relatively low-efficiency ducted rocket/ram-scramjet cycle uses about the same weight of propellant as the highly efficient but lower-thrust turbojet ram-scramjet.