(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005-11-10)
Scher, Michael D.; North, David
The Space Propulsion Sizing Program is an advanced tool to facilitate vehicle design and
broad system-level trade studies. It was designed to provide a simple and reliable means
for rapid propulsion trade studies during the conceptual design phase. This is
accomplished through a combination of mass estimating relationships, bottom-up
calculations, and historical data to size several vehicle subsystems. Microsoft Excel and
Visual BASIC were selected as the medium for the application of these methods.
Through the versatility of Visual BASIC, several output modes are available for the
vehicle mass breakdown and geometry estimates. The capability and reliability of this
unique tool has been demonstrated by comparing estimates to real vehicles.