The flying wing "R6" as first stage carrier of a small launcher for the deployment of satellites in LEO

Nowadays, space missions are becoming more and more expensive; this is due to the raising complexity of the components, the development of new technologies, missions who keep going so much further in space and so on. A keyword we must now keep in mind during a project is “reuse”. This thesis has the aim to realize a carrier able to transport a launcher until to a defined altitude where it could be released for a civil o private use like the deployment of a satellites constellation in LEO. The carrier that will be treated along the work is a flying wing aircraft, full UAV, which will fly at a cruise altitude of 11.000 m and it will release the launcher, throughout a parabolic manoeuvre, at 12.000 m. This project is divided into eight chapters: configuration analysis, state of the art, aerodynamic analysis, stability, structural analysis, manoeuvres analysis, alternative configuration and aeroelastic analysis. AVL software was used to define the aerodynamic parameters and, also, to analyze the trim conditions under different scenarios. From a structural point of view, we have done analysis using Ansys to know the stress levels and how the wing responds to them. The last phases of the work include the study of the parabolic motion, the needs to realize it and the study of the flutter phenomenon using Patran finding both flutter and divergence velocities and their corresponding frequencies