Global Aerospace Corporation is developing a hypersonic control modeling and simulation tool (HyperCMST) for hypersonic aeroassist vehicles. The control and simulation testbed is currently focused on the particularly interesting problem of a lifting ballute for planetary aerocapture and descent. The importance of this technology innovation is in the understanding it can provide on the control of hypersonic vehicles, in general, and of lifting ballutes, in particular. Lift control of a ballute will enable the use of smaller and lighter-weight ballutes for planetary orbit capture, that will make ballutes more attractive and feasible for missions to planets such as Neptune where high heating rates require extremely large ballutes for ballistic capture. The application of the completed comprehensive tool will be extensive including, but not limited to, control studies for entry and descent, aerocapture, and aero-gravity-assist with a range of hypersonic aeroassist systems (e.g. rigid and deployable aeroshells, waveriders, etc.).

HyperCMST employs the pseudospectral method and spectral algorithms, which have all the robustness advantages of direct methods while maintaining the accuracy and information content of indirect methods. Also, unlike indirect methods, it does not have problems of convergence or the problems of providing a guess for the adjoint equations or the costates.