First phase of the research work focuses on dynamic modeling and ascent flight control of a highly unstable and flexible launch vehicle. Stabilizing adaptive PD/PID controllers are developed in MRAC framework using standard quadratic Lyapunov function to control the time varying rigid body dynamics during the atmospheric phase of flight. Further, Lyapunov stability and Barbalat’s Lemma are applied to prove the stability of the time-varying system. In the second phase of the research work proposes projection and barrier Lyapunov based adaptive controllers for the descent phase flight control of a winged re-entry vehicle. A rectangular projection operator is used in the adaptive control design to constrain the adapted gains within a maximum and minimum limit simultaneously.