Progress in Guidance and Control Research for Space Access and Hypersonic Vehicles

Over the past decade, both NASA and the U.S. Air Force have directed significant efforts aimed at reducing the cost of access to space as well as improving the reliability and safety of launch vehicles. From a guidance and control perspective, efforts have focused on the development of fault tolerant autonomous systems that can recover vehicles from failures or damage when physically possible. The state of the art is summarized in this manuscript and some of the challenges preventing widespread use of some of the techniques are discussed. The integration of vehicle health management systems with adaptive guidance and control is also discussed