Performance Analysis of a Transatmospheric Vehicle.

The paper presents a classical performance analysis for the lower stage of a Saenger II-type transatmospheric vehicle propelled by a turbojet/ramjet propulsion system. After constructing a parabolic drag polar from available aerodata the point- and integral performance for minimum path inclination and descent in unpowered flight, max. subsonic and hypersonic ranges for a given amount of fuel. The energy state method is used to compute minimum fuel to climb and to assess turning performance of hypersonic speeds. The results are compared with optimized ascent trajectories using full order mass-point modelling.