ENAE 791 - Spring, 2008
Launch and Entry Vehicle Design
Course Syllabus and Announcements
 

Notes and Announcements

080515 - Sorry about the delay, but all of the final lectures (including the one on the term project, which was hiding in an obscure part of my hard disk) are now posted. Good luck to those of you still working on the term project and have a nice summer!

080414 - On problem 1(d), if your deorbit burn is 1 m/sec too low (apogee velocity is 1 m/sec too high), you will find that the new orbit won't reach entry altitude at all. To allow feasible answers to (e) and (f), please change (d) to reflect a deorbit burn which is 0.5 m/sec too low.

080413 - The solutions to problem set 2 have come much slower than I wanted, as life keeps intruding into work. I have just posted solutions to questions 1-3 in the form of an Excel spreadsheet (XLS; 56 Kb, 3 pgs.) - this isn't as readable and self-explanatory as the solutions to PS1, but the time commitment required for the all-singing, all-dancing LaTeX solutions is prohibitive.

Due to the delay in these solutions, I am postponing the deadline for the midterm exam to class time on Thursday, April 17th. (And, by the way, Problem Set 3 is still on a "turn it in when you can" basis, and is clearly of secondary importance as compared to the midterm.)

080411 later - Okay, here are the solutions to problem set 1 (PDF; 4.1 Mb, 9 pgs.). I wanted to make this really clear and self-explanatory, and wound up fighting my way through LaTeX to get it done. Expect the Problem Set 2 solutions (as early tomorrow as I can) to be much less elegant.

080411 - Here's the full midterm (PDF; 64 Kb, 2 pgs.) Good luck!

080410 - I have posted the first part of the midterm - I'm still checking the final parts of the exam. The complete exam will be online tonight, but I wanted to put the first question up (which is fairly involved) so you can get started right away. Solutions to problem sets 1 and 2 will also be up shortly.

080401 - In thinking about the midterm exam, it has become clear to me that I need to do a lot more in preparation for it than I can accomplish between now and Thursday. I also think, based on the topics covered, that the midterm would be a better indicator of your understanding of the material if you could work on it in a more realistic environment than a classroom - i.e., as a take-home. Therefore, I'm going to move the midterm back one more week, and plan to hand it out on Thursday 4/10 as a takehome, which will be due by class time on Tuesday 4/15. (Just in case taxes weren't painful enough...)

Syllabus