Technical Publications

Rocketplane XP - Conceptual Design Study

The following technical paper was presented at the 44th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Reno, NV titled “Rocketplane® XP – Conceptual Design Study”; AIAA-2006-1239.

ABSTRACT: The Rocketplane XP is a suborbital spaceplane due to enter service in late 2007 that will carry paying participants and microgravity scientific payloads to an altitude greater than 330,000 ft. XP’s tight development and production schedule demanded a very short and concise conceptual design phase with a high degree of confidence. Processes were developed to perform rapid turn around trades in performance, weight allocation, systems engineering, structural concepts, jet and rocket propulsion, volumetric efficiency, and thermal protection. The results from these disciplines were integrated in order to arrive at candidate configurations; and finally after iteration, at a baseline which meets all the requirements. XP’s unique conceptual design process allowed quick progression into preliminary and detailed design phases and formed a foundation of knowledge and methodology that can be applied to future concepts.