ICNPAA 2010: Mathematical Problems in
Engineering, Aerospace and Sciences

Powered flight phase dictates the performance of any launch vehicle. Good ascent guidance can help in reducing cost, reducing load indicators, and consequently increase its performance. The powered flight of Air Launched Satellite Launch Vehicle is divided in several phases. After a short horizontal launch phase, the vehicle undergoes a launch maneuver by introducing a carefully selected Angle of Attack profile. Flight Program is optimized under the constraints of the maximum allowed AOA, lateral and axial overloads. The main focus of this study is the endo-atmospheric phase of the ascent trajectory. To analyze the ascent fight-path, a three degree-of-freedom 3DOF trajectory model is modeled in SIMULINK. Genetic Algorithm is used to optimize the Flight Program, as it is better suited in view of the efficiency of global search performance. In this paper the proposed design optimization approach is applied to design the trajectory of Air Launched Satellite Launch Vehicle and the performance index is the altitude achieved. The method described in this paper provides the designer with a simple yet powerful approach to the ascent trajectory optimization.