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International audience; The French Space Agency (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales-CNES), the UK Space Agency (UKSA), Reaction Engines Limited (REL) and the French Aerospace Lab (Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales-ONERA) share a common interest for future space launch architectures and technologies. Preliminary results of a joint study are presented in this paper with the main objective of assessing and quantifying the potential advantages and benefits of air-breathing propulsion technology developed by REL named SABRE (Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) for future launch architectures. In that purpose, a conceptual study of two alternative Two-Stage-To-Orbit (TSTO) vehicles is carried out using the SABRE air-breathing rocket engine and a LOx/CH4 rocket engine (for the second stage) for the injection of a 15t payload into low Earth orbit. Different analyses are carried out using a coupled multidisciplinary process involving propulsion, aerodynamics, sizing and trajectory optimizations. Some key influential parameters and intricate behaviors are analyzed through sensitivity to the stage separation conditions. As a result, these analyses provide insight into technological requirements to achieve the target mission using these types of advanced propulsion technologies.

In the context of the design of partially reusable launch vehicles, different alternatives may be investigated to recover the first stage while minimizing the costs of reusability and maximizing the performance and reliability. In this paper, a winged configuration of reusable first stage, called glide-back, is studied. This architecture uses the main propulsion system of the first stage to perform a boost-back burn and return to the landing site by a gliding mode using additional lifting surfaces. A focus is made on the design of a reusability kit that can be added to a classical stage to provide it with reusability capabilities. The tradeoff between the design of the reusability kit and its impact on the ascent phase, staging point and global performance of the vehicle is investigated through aerodynamics and trajectory analyses.