Talon-P: Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimization Framework Using Low-Fidelity Models

This paper is a contribution to a special session focused on the analysis and optimization of a vehicle inspired by the Stratolaunch Talon-A vehicle, the baseline case of which we will refer to as Talon-P. Talon-A is a re-usable, rocket powered hypersonic flight testbed vehicle. This paper focuses on the creation of a multidisciplinary design analysis and optimization (MDAO) framework for the Talon-P hypersonic vehicle. The framework is implemented within NASA's OpenMDAO and uses openly-available low-fidelity methods and tools for fast analysis. An evaluation of the multidisciplinary analysis (MDA) based on publicly available mass data for Talon-A shows that it is within 27% accurate. The framework is demonstrated on three design applications. The first one is the design space exploration of the nose cone shape and its effect on the cruise performance. The second one demonstrates single- and multiobjective shape optimization of the nose cone and yields the tradeoffs between the cruise flight time and the nose cone volume. The last one is an uncertainty quantification of the vehicle performance in terms of uncertain cruise Mach number and altitude.