Optimization of the Earth reentry trajectory of a blunted body by the integral heat flux

The paper deals with optimization of the Earth reentry trajectory by the magnitude of the total convective heat flux at the stagnation point of a blunted body. The equations of a thin (hypersonic) viscous shock layer taking into account the nonequilibrium nature of chemical reactions and multicomponent diffusion are used as the initial mathematical model for heat flux calculations. The optimal solution is obtained by an effective robust method using the basic ideas of genetic algorithms.