A new deployment/retrieval scheme for a tethered satellite system, intermediate between the conventional scheme and the crawler scheme
✍ Scribed by M. Pascal; A. Djebli; L. El Bakkali
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2001
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 413 KB
- Volume
- 65
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0021-8928
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✦ Synopsis
The dynamics of a tethered satellite system (TSS) during deployment and retrieval in orbit are considered. The system consists of a space station and a second body (a sub-satellite) connected to it by a tether. The station and sub-satellite are assumed to be point masses whose mass centre describes an unperturbed Kepler orbit. Deployment/retrieval schemes are defined in which the ordinary differential equations with variable coefficients that describe small spatial oscillations of the system can be solved by analytical means. An intermediate scheme, generalizing the previously proposed conventional scheme and the crawler scheme [1] and which has certain advantages, is obtained.