cape.attdb: Package for “datakits”: database + toolkit

The cape.attdb module is named for its original intention of handling “databases” for the Aero Task Team of the Space Launch System program. The databases created for technical disciplines tend to differ significantly and fundamentally from the typical databases in the software world, which are little more than a series of spreadsheets in a different data format.

Technical databases also contain “lookup” rules and have meaning at conditions that are not directly represented in the database. For example, an integrated force & moment database might contain 6 output force & moment coefficients that are a function of Mach number, angle of attack, and sideslip angle. The file might only have data at Mach 1.2 and 1.4, but it still has to provide an answer when the user wants to know the forces & moments at Mach 1.32. The “response database” contains some data along with explicitly specified rules.

The cape.attdb module is intended to provide a library of tools useful to this situation, with an obvious focus on the data products that are needed to support aerodynamic analysis of launch vehicles.