AAS 95-423

Flight Envelopes for Hypersonic Aero-Rendezvous at Various Constant Altitudes

J -S. Chern, Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology, Z. Chang Hong and Y.-H. Chen, National Central University, Chungli, Taiwan

Abstract

The word aero-rendezvous means the process of bringing two vehicles or spacecrafts together by using aerodynamic maneuver so that docking of the space vehicles can be accomplished when necessary. Consequently, the two vehicles of spacecrafts must have the same position and the same velocity vector when the rendezvous is completed. It would be of interest to solve the flight envelope for this particular problem. The purposes of this paper are: (1) to construct the flight envelopes at various different altitudes, and (2) to investigate the variation in shape of the envelopes and the opening at the critical points. The flight envelopes for se