Design of Hypersonic Lifting Body Vehicle (Lead Chief Engineer’s Report)

This final report is the key deliverable for the MAE 4351 Capstone Project in fulfillment of ABET objectives, documenting the activities and contributions of the lead engineer of Ascension Aerospace, a team composed of 21 senior-level aerospace undergraduates. After introducing the scope of the project and some historical background, the author sets out to build a business case and define the mission profiles of a vehicle system which launches three variants of the Model 176 Hypersonic Lifting Body by means of two SpaceX reusable launch systems: Falcon B5 and Falcon Heavy. The business case is built on civilian market demand for low-Earth orbital access and point-to-point transportation. The costs and revenues are examined for a nominal mission and operations are assessed against competition in potential markets. Trade studies are conducted to properly design the reconnaissance mission profile to meet geopolitical goals. As the chief, the author reports on the team management and workflow methodology, as well as chronicles the program development of Ascension Aerospace. The methodology is then built for the multi-disciplinary analysis of reverse-engineering the technical aspects of meeting the proposed mission profile. A summary of some of the methods used for this analysis is supported by a literature review near the beginning of the report. The report concludes with an initial engineering-development cost estimate and some suggested future work.