A STUDY OF VERY HIGH ALTITUDE MANEUVERS USING AERODYNAMIC FORCES, Volume II - On the Effects- of Aerodynamic Force and Continuous Thrust in Very High Altitude Maneuvers at Orbital Speeds

摘要

Effects of aerodynamic forces on the flight path of a very high altitude, orbital velocity vehicle are considered. The magnitude of the aerodynamic force is assumed to be small compared with the gravitational force, thus restricting the analysis to altitudes above approximately 100 kilometers. Provision is made to account for the effects of continuous thrust of unlimited magnitude. Poisson series solutions, through first order, for the flight path as affected by the lift, drag and thrust are developed. Numerical examples for the particular case in which thrust and lift are always normal to the instantaneous plane of motion are presented. In the analysis a simple, accurate expression for the spherically distributed density is derived. This density function is shown to reduce to previous, less accurate density functions as special cases.