Main Structural Design Considerations for Reusable Launch Vehicles

Within the space trasportation context, a new and exciting trend is emerging: the will of partially or fully reusing a launch vehicle. This allows LV manufacturers to offer more competitive prices in the overall growing space transportation market and further flexibility to customers. Many attempts at this have been done in the past decades by governmental entities, approaching the problem in distinct ways: from horizontal takeoff-horizontal landing systems (HTHL, akin to an airplane) to vertical takeoff-vertical landing (VTVL) rockets by means of retropropulsion as in the case of SpaceX and Blue Origin, recently created privately owned space companies. This revolution in the business comes with necessary advancements in different aerospace fields, and the need of increasing the technology readiness level (TRL) of these technologies by means of research arises. Structural and thermal design problems that emerge with the will of reusability of launch vehicles are approached and preliminary considerations and proposals for solutions are reported and evaluated.