REENTRY VEHICLE DISPERSION DUE TO ATMOSPHERIC VARIATIONS
Abstract
Reentry vehicle impact displacements due to a fixed perturbation in density or in wind speed in each 5-km-thick layer of the atmosphere up to 90-km altitude were derived from a series of machine reentry-trajectory calculations with the program RANGE for different R/V's and reentry conditions. Three arbitrary reentry vehicle shapes were chosen whose ballistic coefficients (550, 1025, and 1975 lb/sq ft) were representative of the range of interesting values. Reentry conditions were varied, from those of IRBM's of 15,000 ft/sec at 50-deg path angle, to those for ICBM's of 22,500 ft/sec at 20-deg path angle, and reentry azimuths were varied from direct equatorial (tail wind) to retrograde equatorial (head wind). Intermediate reentry conditions were included to define the dependences well enough for interpolation, and even slight extrapolation, to all known interesting combinations. The resulting layer-wise miss contributions from the most influential 5-km layers (centered at 5- and 10-km altitude) vary from about 200 ft for 1 percent change in density.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1969
- Accession Number
- AD0697925
Entities
People
- Reinald G. Finke
Organizations
- Institute for Defense Analyses