Dominant Suborbital Space Tourism Architectures
In the early stages of maturity of a system built for a specific function, it is common for the solutions to lie in a broad architectural space, in which numerous concepts are being developed, built, and tested. As the product matures, certain concepts become more dominant. This pattern can currentl...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126666 |
| _version_ | 1826212515118317568 |
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| author | Guerster, Markus Crawley, Edward F |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Guerster, Markus Crawley, Edward F |
| author_sort | Guerster, Markus |
| collection | MIT |
| description | In the early stages of maturity of a system built for a specific function, it is common for the solutions to lie in a broad architectural space, in which numerous concepts are being developed, built, and tested. As the product matures, certain concepts become more dominant. This pattern can currently be observed in the suborbital tourism industry, in which the obvious question is what system architecture will provide the best combination of cost and safety and in the long run become the dominant architecture. This paper addresses this question by defining a broad architectural space of thousands of possibilities and exploring it comprehensively. We identified 33 feasible architectures, 26 of which had not been proposed earlier. A genetic algorithm optimizes each architecture with respect to the launch mass (a proxy for cost) and operational safety. The launch mass has been calculated in a design analysis framework consisting of four modules: weight/size, propulsion, aerodynamics, and trajectory. A validation of this framework shows relative differences below 7%. A quantitative safety analysis is developed and validated with a survey of 11 leading experts. We identify six dominant architectures. These form a set from which optimal variants are likely to come. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:24:21Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/126666 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:24:21Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1266662022-10-02T02:35:38Z Dominant Suborbital Space Tourism Architectures Guerster, Markus Crawley, Edward F Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics In the early stages of maturity of a system built for a specific function, it is common for the solutions to lie in a broad architectural space, in which numerous concepts are being developed, built, and tested. As the product matures, certain concepts become more dominant. This pattern can currently be observed in the suborbital tourism industry, in which the obvious question is what system architecture will provide the best combination of cost and safety and in the long run become the dominant architecture. This paper addresses this question by defining a broad architectural space of thousands of possibilities and exploring it comprehensively. We identified 33 feasible architectures, 26 of which had not been proposed earlier. A genetic algorithm optimizes each architecture with respect to the launch mass (a proxy for cost) and operational safety. The launch mass has been calculated in a design analysis framework consisting of four modules: weight/size, propulsion, aerodynamics, and trajectory. A validation of this framework shows relative differences below 7%. A quantitative safety analysis is developed and validated with a survey of 11 leading experts. We identify six dominant architectures. These form a set from which optimal variants are likely to come. 2020-08-18T21:50:18Z 2020-08-18T21:50:18Z 2019-09 2019-06 2019-10-24T18:00:30Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1533-6794 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126666 Guerster, Markus and Edward F. Crawley. "Dominant Suborbital Space Tourism Architectures." Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets 56, 5 (September 2019): dx.doi.org/10.2514/1.a34385 en http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/1.a34385 Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Other repository |
| spellingShingle | Guerster, Markus Crawley, Edward F Dominant Suborbital Space Tourism Architectures |
| title | Dominant Suborbital Space Tourism Architectures |
| title_full | Dominant Suborbital Space Tourism Architectures |
| title_fullStr | Dominant Suborbital Space Tourism Architectures |
| title_full_unstemmed | Dominant Suborbital Space Tourism Architectures |
| title_short | Dominant Suborbital Space Tourism Architectures |
| title_sort | dominant suborbital space tourism architectures |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126666 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT guerstermarkus dominantsuborbitalspacetourismarchitectures AT crawleyedwardf dominantsuborbitalspacetourismarchitectures |