Advanced Rocket Trajectory Propagation Techniques

High-fidelity trajectory propagators are fundamental to the simulation and analysis of launch vehicles, missiles, and satellites. Applications in fields ranging from missile threat analysis to flightpath optimization seek fast and accurate solutions to large numbers of trajectories in federated simulation environments. Due to their robustness, well-known properties, and straightforward implementation, most trajectory simulators use standard numerical integrators. However, the low computational and memory efficiency of standard integrators often limits the scope and complexity of the problems they consider. Recently developed multi-stage, multi-derivative Hermite-Birkhoff-Taylor methods couple Taylor Series and Runge-Kutta methods and achieve superior computational efficiencies compared to standard integrators. A straightforward extension of these methods based on Hermite interpolation yields smooth, piecewise polynomial expressions for the solution with tunable accuracies and storage requirements. Nanohmics proposes to collaborate with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed by the California Institute of Technology to investigate extensions of Hermite-Birkhoff-Taylor methods to efficiently solve and store vehicle trajectories in high-throughput, federated simulation environments. Numerical experiments on simple 3-DoF space launches will compare the computational performance of prototype implementations with those of standard propagators. Experimental results will be extrapolated using numerical analysis to identify computationally efficient extensions suitable for 6-DoF trajectories based on high-fidelity models.Approved for Public Release | 18-MDA-9522 (23 Feb 18)