Interactive Space Launch Design Framework Development using Centralized Database Architecture

This study describes a design framework development using system engineering and centralized database concepts for various space launch vehicles to assist aeronautical engineers during mission and conceptual design and analysis process. This framework was first implemented in Matlab environment. Then due to some technical insufficiencies it is upgraded to a better version in VB.Net environment. Centralized database concept is applied for better data storage efficiency for all input and output of modules in the framework. Moreover, sorting function for database of competitive rockets over the world is added in the process for requirements. The purpose of utilization of data mining is to make the design optimization performed with fast and successful convergence by predicting the data necessary for the design optimization. Finally, the information resulted from a mission design is utilized as the system baseline to a newly introduced stage ‘Conceptual Design’. The framework GUI design is done mainly based on system engineering concept, thereby allowing user to interact with GUIs to easily finish the whole mission design process from start to end. The design framework is developed in a high-level technical computing language and interactive environment of VB.Net and 3D modeling using CATIA v5. To sum it up, this design framework includes and integrates many different functions and newly-added features: data mining for estimation and optimization of required initial values, fast accessibility to data mining values once it is determined, design analysis, design synthesis, and geometric 3D modeling of final configuration of the designed space launch vehicle. With this space launch framework, the mission and conceptual design for the rocket system targeted on the 700 x 700 ㎞ circular orbit has been successfully developed and demonstrated the efficiency of the framework.