ASTOS® Applications
Completely data driven definitions of numerous launch, reentry and orbit transfer missions
Currently, three basic mission scenarios are provided by ASTOS. Two launcher applications for conventional rocket types and so called advanced launcher, which characteristics are horizontal launch and the possibility of using air-breathing engines. The third basic application is the re-entry vehicle application with a large flexibility for the initial state.
Last but not least, a variety of orbit transfer missions (including aeroassisted transfers and low-thrust transfers) can be analyzed and optimized with ASTOS.
Based on the models in the model library, with all ASTOS applications you easily determine
- optimal attitude controls and optimal design parameters,
- minimizing one of several different objective functions.
Optimal trajectories can be subject to more than 90 different kinds of path constraints and boundary constraints. More than one hundred trajectory parameters are automatically evaluated by the simulation program.
All ASTOS Application are based on the object-oriented ASTOS Model Library. A modern software architecture makes these applications easy to set up and straight-forward to use. The vehicle model components, the phase configuration, and the mission definition are simple to define by a set of three input data files. No programming skills are required.
The corresponding dynamic system, its controls, the constraints, as well as the cost function are configured automatically without additional user interaction. A sophisticated plausibility check is performed during initialization to detect input errors.
A set of automatic initial guesses, based on the mission specifications, is available. Such a trajectory serves as an initial guess for the optimization.
Since all user-configured data structures are allocated at run-time, there are no software limits on the number of model components, vehicle stages, aerodynamic configurations, or propulsion systems. There are only some hardware and operating-system related limitations which restrict the mission definition (e.g. memory limits).
An essential feature of all ASTOS applications is its advanced interface to user input. Data files are interpreted using the powerful I/O language system VIOLIN. It enables the user to create and reference new variables, access other files, and perform simple arithmetic operations when specifying data. Alternativly the user can avoid any programming and typing using the model browser.