2332. Kinetic Kill Vehicles: The Future is Now
$20.00
SAWE Members get a $200 store credit each year.*
*Store credit coupon available at checkout, click the button in your shopping cart to apply the coupon.
Not applicable to SAWE textbooks and current conference technical papers.
Paper
Abstract
Page 1.11 of the SAWE handbook states that the energy associated with 1 ton of TNT is 4.2 x 10^16 ergs. A ton of TNT has the same energy of a ton of ordinary matter moving at about 3000 meters per second, or about 10,000 feet per second. Such velocities are usually associated with very high speed projectiles, specifically an atmospheric reentry body (RB). One might assume that an RB with a landing velocity of 3 kilometers per second would have a similar influence upon its landing site as an RB mass of exploding TNT. The first part of this paper covers some first-order estimation techniques for determining landing speeds of sphere-cone reentry bodies. Assuming that a TNT-like influence is the desired effect, and that one wishes to exert that influence from a launch point thousands of kilometers distant, it becomes critically important to control the landing site to a very high degree of accuracy. The second part of this paper covers a means of end game flight control involving steering an incoming RB by shifting the center of gravity of the vehicle.
