Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Modeling Launch Vehicle Success Using Artificial Neural Networks, Jennifer A. Schuck

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

Expendable launch vehicles in the United States currently have a reliability of 92%. The failures that do occur cost millions of dollars in spacecraft replacement, lost revenue, and other expenses. These costs are passed on in higher insurance rates and launch vehicle price. If the launch outcome of the launch vehicles could be better predicted, the overall cost of launching payloads into space would decrease. This study used artificial neural networks to model the overall launch outcome of a launch vehicle so that the results of a launch could be predicted. Two neural network architectures--MLP and fuzzy ARTMAP--were trained on …