Abstract:
Starship is a novel reusable astronautical transportation system proposed by SpaceX. Based on the relevant available information, the work builds up the aerodynamic configuration of the Starship and investigates its performance by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics. A comprehensive study, including lift-drag characteristic, trim characteristic, stability and the comparison of dihedral deflecting wing with canard, reentry trajectory, thermal environment, has been done. Based on the trajectory calculation, the analysis on thermal environment and thermal protection material has been done. The designing concept of the Starship has been discussed from an overall perspective. It is shown that the control mode adopted by the Starship is suitable for high angle-of-attack flight. The Starship is controllable across the whole speed domain. The tailless layout of the Starship makes it lateral stable at high angle-of-attack. A lower ballistic coefficient enables higher deceleration efficiency of the Starship. Due to the fact that the higher efficiency enables lesser aerodynamic heating, dihedral deflecting wing is more suitable than the canard for the Starship at high angle-of-attack. In general, the aerodynamic configuration of the Starship has clear mission requirements and designing objectives. The designing scheme is concise and reasonable.