Effects of Increasing Aerothermodynamic Fidelity on Hypersonic Trajectory Optimisation for Flight Testing Purposes

In a previous study, the optimal re-entry trajectory of Hyperion-2 has been derived. The mission of the vehicle is to measure hypersonic boundary-layer transition, a phenomena in which the laminar boundary layer turns into a turbulent boundary layer. This is an important feature in hypersonic flow to investigate, as it introduces peak heating...