Error correction for instantaneous impact point of a launch vehicle using response surface method

Abstract

This research provides a fast and accurate algorithm to predict the instantaneous impact point of a launch This algorithm improves previous analytic Keplerian algorithm by using response surface method. A response surface models the effects of the atmospheric drag and the gravity perturbation. The coefficients of the response surface models are decided by using numerical experiments. Three response surface models of the error the flight time, the error of the down range angle, and the error of the cross range angle are generated at each time points. This modeled response surfaces provide the correction terms which can reduce the error between numerical integration and analytic Keplerian IIP prediction algorithm and during the actual flight this correction term will be added to a result of analytic Keplerian IIP. Result of flight operation case study shows that the proposed algorithm improves the accuracy of prediction considerably.