Deterministic Drift--Slew Fusion Bootstrap for Navigation During Plasma Blackout in Hypersonic Re-Entry Vehicles

The plasma blackout phase of hypersonic atmospheric re-entry presents one of the most demanding navigation challenges for reusable launch vehicles. During this critical window, lasting several minutes, the vehicle is enveloped in an ionized sheath that renders external radio-frequency positioning and communication unreliable or unavailable. Navigation must then rely primarily on inertial measurement units that accumulate drift, while abrupt aerodynamic transients and control actions produce slew-like residual spikes. This paper applies the Drift--Slew Fusion Bootstrap (DSFB) framework---a deterministic, trust-adaptive residual correction mechanism formally specified in prior work---to the plasma-blackout…