LAUNCH PAD ABORT OF THE HL-20 LIFTING BODY

The capability of the HL-20 lifting-body spacecraft to perform an abor t maneuver from the launch pad to a horizontal landing was studied. Th is study involved both piloted and batch simulation models of the vehi cle. A point-mass model of the vehicle was used for trajectory optimiz ation studies. The piloted simulation was performed in a fixed-base si mulator. A candidate maneuver was developed and refined for the worst- case launch-pad-to-landing-site geometry using an iterative procedure of off-line maneuver analysis followed by piloted evaluations and heur istic improvements to the candidate maneuver. The resulting maneuver d emonstrates the launch site abort capability of the HL-20 and dictates requirements for nominal abort motor performance. The sensitivity of the maneuver to variations in several design parameters was documented .