Conceptual research on powered common aero vehicle

We review the development of the Falcon program of the US. To avoid the difficulties in developing un-powered Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) adopted by the program, we propose the conceptual powered CAV. We analyze some key enabling technologies of powered CAV, such as selection of propulsion system, design of aerodynamic configuration and trajectory design. Section 1 of the full paper, after much discussion including particularly that of Fig. 2 in the full paper, concludes that the powered CAV should adopt rocket engine as its propulsion system. Section 2, after analysis, concludes that either the lift configuration with high lift-drag ratio or the wave-rider configuration with its capacity ratio improved is the ideal candidate for powered CAV. After comparing the hypersonic periodic cruise trajectory with the hypersonic steady-state cruise trajectory, section 3 concludes that the periodic cruise trajectory is better than the steady state cruise trajectory and thus should be the first-choice trajectory of powered CAV. Section 4 calculates and compares two numerical examples. The calculation results and their comparison, given in Figs. 9 through 11 and Tables 1 and 2, show preliminarily that the design of configuration and that of trajectory should be integrated so as to enhance the overall performance of powered CAV.