Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization of Suborbital Transatmospheric Vehicles
Pierluigi DELLA VECCHIA, Luca FALCONE, Agostino DE MARCO, Fabrizio NICOLOSI, Giulio AVANZINI, Mario DI RENZO, Donatella PASSIATORE, Danilo ZONA
Abstract. Suborbital vehicles, which have the potential to drastically reduce the flight time of medium- and long-range missions to durations below one hour, are attracting increasing attention from the scientific community. The iConDeS (Integrated Conceptual Design Tools for Suborbital Vehicles) research project aims to develop advanced methodologies for the conceptual design and optimization of this class of vehicles. In this context, the present work investigates the influence of thrust-to-weight ratios on the design characteristics of a fully reusable two-stage launcher, with the objective of minimizing its liftoff mass.
Keywords
Multistage Suborbital Vehicles, Conceptual Design, Parametric Study
Published online 7/20/2026, 6 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Pierluigi DELLA VECCHIA, Luca FALCONE, Agostino DE MARCO, Fabrizio NICOLOSI, Giulio AVANZINI, Mario DI RENZO, Donatella PASSIATORE, Danilo ZONA, Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization of Suborbital Transatmospheric Vehicles, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 69, pp 954-959, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904251-168
The article was published as article 168 of the book CEAS – AIDAA Conference 2025
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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