Flying Qualities Analysis for Re-entry Vehicles: Methodology and Application

In the frame of on-going and future European projects related to atmospheric entry of a space vehicle, it has been identified the need for implementation of a framework for Flying Quality Analysis (FQA), including the definition of a “canvas” for a future FQA standard. This paper presents the development of a detailed FQA methodology and the demonstration of its suitability by the application to different types of vehicles (capsules, lifting bodies, winged vehicles) in various stages of their development process. It includes detailed test campaigns for the identified Flying Quality criteria as well as the validation against closed loop Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) simulations for ARD, IXV and HL-20 vehicles. This methodology has been successfully applied in an advanced design phase for the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), superseding former methods and approaches and showing the advantages of such standardized framework for Flying Qualities analyses.