A new technique has been developed to enhance the use of upper atmosphere aerobraking for increased performance from orbital transfer vehicles. This technique utilizes a pressure supported drag brake and the orbital transfer vehicle main engine to modulate aerodynamic drag and also to alleviate the aerodynamic heating during a grazing pass through the atmosphere. Performance analyses of vehicles utilizing all-propulsive or aerobraking during round trip missions from low earth orbit (LEO) to geo-synchronous earth orbit (GEO) and back shows that aerobraking allows a given vehicle to deliver approximately twice as much payload to GEO and return. Aerobraking also provides more than twice the round trip payload.


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    Title :

    Aerobraked orbital transfer vehicle definition


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Aerospace Sciences Meeting ; 1981 ; St. Louis, MO


    Publication date :

    1981-01-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English


    Keywords :