Angle of attack operation zone analysis and application based on equilibrium glide condition for lifting reentry

Based on equilibrium glide condition, angle of attack optimization and design for surface-symmetric reentry vehicle with medium-to-high L/D ratio is studied. Systematic analyses for path constraints during reentry flight are carried out in an engineering perspective. Then angle of attack operation zone is obtained by investigating the stall angle of attack, initial descent angle of attack and equilibrium glide angle of attack. A feasible design method is also given for angle of attack profile. The proposed method works well for angle of attack profile generation in the preliminary design phase of lifting entry vehicles, and all the path constraints have been properly satisfied. The angle of attack design method is also applied for footprint optimization problem, and simulation results show that the designed angle of attack profile has almost the same optimality compared with some direct method.