Integrated Internal and External Ballistics for Sounding Rocket Design

This paper reports integrated internal and external ballistics for a sounding rocket, particularly useful in meeting flight performance requirements by adjusting the design and operation parameters of a propulsion system. In order to understand the effect of the propulsion subsystem performance parameters of a sounding rocket on its flight performance, a simulation-based study was conducted. A hybrid propellant rocket propulsion performance was estimated through internal ballistics, and a flight trajectory of a sounding rocket was simulated through external ballistics, which were then integrated between them. With the integrated ballistics algorithm suggested, the effect of varying propulsion system parameters on the sounding rocket flight performance was investigated. The suggested integration of the internal and external ballistics has been found to be useful in determining the optimum design and operation parameters of a propulsion subsystem and their effect on a sounding rocket flight performance.