A reusable rocket-back launch booster is the first stage of a launch vehicle that, after separation from the upper-stage stack, will be able to turn around under its own (rocket) power and glide to land at the launch site. This turn-around maneuver is critical to the success of landing the booster back at the launch site. This paper presents a study of the powered pitch-over maneuver for the rocket-back booster. The pitch-over maneuver is first cast into an optimal control problem and the simple control law and analytical state solution are obtained. Based on this solution the problem is further analyzed to construct a complete trajectory back to the launch site, and an approach to estimate the minimum fuel required to perform a required powered pitch-over maneuver from any given staging condition. Closed-loop guided simulations are conducted to provide illustration to various aspects of rocket-back trajectories.
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