Optimum Coast Time for Delayed Staging . . .

Is there a program that can determine the optimum coast time for maximum altitude on a rocket using delayed staging, assuming that it is at optimum weight ?

Dave

If you use rocksim, you can just change the delay to second stage from 0 after first burnout to when the curve starts going down, but i don't think there's any inexpensive program that can conduct optimization tests of this nature.

You should be able to use any multi-stage simulation program to do it, but it's a manual process.

The on-line webalt simulator can do it. https://webalt.markworld.com/webalt.html

Bob

Ez2cDave said:

Is there a program that can determine the optimum coast time for maximum altitude on a rocket using delayed staging, assuming that it is at optimum weight ?

Dave

Click to expand...

I have a program, 2DQD2.xls, that does a 2-D simulation and can find optimal staging delay using the Excel solver. I have to convert it to run on Office 2007 and 2010. Short conversion, but it requires a round tuit, and I have only square ones just now.

It is necessary to do at least a 2-D simulation for this application, because you have to check behavior at angles around the expected one. The penalty for not doing so is the risk of serious prangs.

There is the rocket tiltometer, which does all this in flight. It's pricey. (I hope and trust it's evolving into a full 6-DOF flight computer)

-LarryC