(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004-09)
Rohrschneider, Reuben R.; Olds, John R.; Kuhl, Christopher A.; Braun, Robert D.; Steffes, Stephen R.; Hutchinson, Virgil L., Jr.
The goal of this study was to explore the flight system options for the design of a long
endurance Mars airplane mission. The mission model was built in the design framework
ModelCenter and a combination of a hybrid and user-driven fixed point iteration
optimization method was used to determine the maximum endurance solution of each
configuration. Five different propulsion systems were examined: a bipropellant rocket, a
battery powered propeller, a direct methanol fuel cell powered propeller, and beamed solar
and microwave powered propeller systems. Five airplane configurations were also studied.
The best configuration has a straight wing with two vertical tails. The direct methanol fuel
cell proved to be the best onboard power system for a long endurance airplane and the solar
beamed power system showed potential for indefinite flight. The combination of the best
configuration and the methanol fuel cell resulted in an airplane capable of cruising for 17.8
hours on Mars.
(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004-05)
Rohrschneider, Reuben R.; Olds, John R.; Braun, Robert D.; Hutchinson, Virgil L., Jr.; Kuhl, Christopher A.; Steffes, Stephen R.
The goal of this study was to determine the best system level modeling tool for the design of a long endurance Mars airplane mission, and to use this tool to determine the best configuration for the aircraft. The mission model was built in the design framework ModelCenter. User-driven fixed point iteration (FPI), optimizer based decomposition (OBD) and a hybrid method were implemented. Convergence difficulties were discovered in the OBD and hybrid methods. The user-driven FPI method produced the most reliable results, but required the most time. A combination of the hybrid and user-driven FPI methods were used to perform a technology study in which five different propulsion systems were examined: a bipropellant rocket, a battery powered propeller, a direct methanol fuel cell powered propeller, and beamed solar and microwave powered propeller systems. The direct methanol fuel cell proved to be the best onboard power system for a long endurance airplane and the solar beamed power system showed potential for indefinite flight.