Guaranteed fuel load for space launch vehicles

The paper discusses specific aspects of procedures for determining guaranteed propellant loads for multistage space rockets, provides a list of disturbing factors, peculiarities of control systems and constraints affecting the amount of the guaranteed propellant load. It provides guaranteed propellant loads and their delta-v equivalents for a number of Russian space rockets. It considers in depth the determination of guaranteed propellant loads for the upper stage Block DM-SL within the integrated launch vehicle Zenit-3SL of the Sea Launch program. The authors demonstrated that introduction into the upper stage Block DM-SL of the main engine shutdown triggered by the exhaustion of propellant components along with the existing engine shutdown as a function of control system makes it possible to increase the mass of the spacecraft put into its final orbit by the upper stage Block DM-SL within the integrated launch vehicle Zenit-3SL.