Modeling Rocket Ascent from the Moon

Model the launch of a single-stage rocket-propelled vehicle from the surface of the Moon.

This submission is a MATLAB script named demo_lunar_ascent that demonstrates how to model a single-stage, finite-burn lunar ascent trajectory. The trajectory is modeled as a user-defined vertical rise phase, a pitch-over phase and a finite-burn ascent-to-orbit phase. The optimal flight controls (angle-of-attack, bank angle and throttle setting) for this script are computed using the lascent_sos computer program.

Additional information about the lascent_sos program can be found in Appendix B of this document.

The important features of this MATLAB script are as follows:

• user-defined vertical rise and pitch-over phases
• angle-of-attack, bank angle and throttle control variables
• 3-DOF flight path equations of motion relative to a spherical, rotating Moon
• user-defined vehicle mass and propulsion properties