A new online trajectory generation solution for reusable launch vehicles during approach and landing

This paper presents a new online trajectory generation solution for reusable launch vehicles (RLV) during approach and landing (A&L). This new solution considers initial dynamic pressure constraints and overload jumps along the trajectory. First this new solution designs a reference flight profile by piecing together several flight phases which are defined by a small set of geometric parameters. This profile increases steep glide-slope capture. Then a new iterative method iterated on altitude for faster trajectory propagation computation is utilized. Finally, the problems of initial dynamic pressure constraints and overload jumps are transformed into variables search problem. Variables search algorithm is designed, which iterates on two variables (the downrange at initial exp flare, the altitude at initial steep glide-slope) to solve initial dynamic pressure constraints and overload jumps at real-time. Numerical simulations are conducted to show the new online trajectory generation solution can generates a smooth online trajectory.