Raytheon Company

Joseph R Corrado

Michael A Barker

Dean W Smith

Edward J Marquart

A flight vehicle, such as a missile, operates both atmospherically and exo-atmospherically. The flight vehicle has control surfaces which are able to rotate relative to a fuselage of the flight vehicle, with the control surfaces extending outside of the fuselage into the airstream (or space) around the fuselage. The control surfaces may be used to control attitude in both atmospheric flight and exo-atmospheric flight. In atmospheric flight the control surfaces operate conventionally, with the aerodynamic forces on the control surfaces creating a torque on the flight vehicle. The control surfaces may be selectively positioned, such as by use of actuators, to achieve the desired torque on the flight vehicle, to achieve the desired attitude. In exo-atmospheric flight the control surfaces can be used as momentum wheels, with the control surfaces selectively rotated to produce a reaction torque on the fuselage.

Flight vehicle with control surfaces usable as momentum wheels

A rocket vehicle includes a controller that integrates operation of a variable-vector main thruster and attitude control thrusters. When the main thruster is firing and roll is commanded, the controller can provide roll moment by firing only a single attitude control thruster, while changing the thrust vector of the main thruster to offset any pitch/yaw moments induced by the firing of the single attitude control thruster. The single attitude control thruster may be a thruster on the leeward side of the rocket vehicle. Since there is a lower wall pressure on the leeward side of the rocket vehicle, the thruster efficiency is improved by accomplishing roll by use of a single thruster (which may be one of a pair of thrusters used to achieve roll in one direction). A significant reduction in fuel use may be accomplished.

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Tucson, AZ, United States of America

Joseph R Corrado