Fuel-Optimal Retrothrusted Soft Landing Through an Atmosphere,
Abstract
A simple analysis of the problem of achieving a soft landing for airdrop by fitting the payload with retrorockets, and a direct iterative numerical procedure for determining the switch-on point for minimal fuel consumption, in terms of either time or altitude. Through appropriate reversals of sign, the formulas may also be used for ascent trajectories of full-thrust, vertically boosted rockets where the assumption of a constant gravity field is acceptable. Since the unretrothrusted portion of the descent is identical with free fall, the dynamical equations are integrable in closed forms. For a constant atmosphere, closed form analytic solution is also obtained for the retrothrusted descent. For an exponentially varying atmosphere, however, one cannot escape a numerical integration of the dynamical equations. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1970
- Accession Number
- AD0718405
Entities
People
- M. L. Juncosa
Organizations
- RAND Corporation