Increase the load-carrying capacity of the launch vehicle by optimizing the fuel consumption strategy

The article considers one of the possibilities for increasing the in load-carrying capacity of the launch vehicle. Traditional ways to improve the energy characteristics of rocket are to improve the fuel, engine and rocket itself. During the development of the first powerful launch vehicles, another path began to develop, giving a noticeable additional increase in the energy characteristics of the rocket due to the use of methods controls. To implement this path, it is necessary to control the consumption of fuel, the operating modes of the liquid engine and the moments of cutting off the engines with the discard of spent parts of the rocket, so that it becomes possible to achieve the maximum rocket speed by the end of the active flight section. Due to this, it is possible to launch the largest mass of space objects into orbit - the maximum achievable carrying capacity of the launch vehicle is provided. On-board automatic systems that implement such control to one degree or another are called “fuel consumption control systems”. This article analyzes the possibility of increasing the load capacity of a monoblock liquid-propellant launch vehicle, associated with the transition from a traditional fuel consumption strategy to an optimal one. The results of the analysis of the optimal fuel consumption strategy are presented.