ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0002-5637-5931

Graduation Semester and Year

2017

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Aerospace Engineering

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

First Advisor

Bernd Chudoba

Abstract

The early Conceptual Design (CD) of a Space Access System (SAS) is the most abstract, innovative, and technologically challenging phase throughout the entire aerospace product development life-cycle. While it is the most important life-cycle phase which influences around 80 percent of the overall life-cycle-cost, it is also the least understood design phase. The history of space access vehicle design provides numerous examples of projects that failed due to lack of a proper technology-hardware-mission assessment in the CD phase. The present dissertation addresses this crucial phase and develops a prototype best practice solution process to advance the current state of the art of the CD oriented vehicle design synthesis systems. The solution is a generic process that can be applied to all categories of the SAS. The Vertical-Takeoff Horizontal-Landing type SAS is selected as the demonstration case-study for the solution process. The research provides a proof of concept for how the proposed prototype solution process expands the scope and application of current applications of the CD assessment vertically across the SAS system`s hierarchy and horizontally across the life-cycle phases of the SAS.

Keywords

Space Access Systems, Spacecraft, Design, System engineering, Conceptual design, MDA, Synthesis, Space system

Disciplines

Aerospace Engineering | Engineering | Mechanical Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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