Peculiarities of wave dynamics in the tether of a space tethered system

In this paper we analyze the wave's effects in the tether of a space tethered system. The space tethered system is considered as a “big” massive satellite or a spacecraft moving along a circular orbit and a smaller satellite (endmass) connected with the first one by flexible and stretchable lon...

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Veröffentlicht in:Acta astronautica 2022-05, Vol.194, p.425-433
Hauptverfasser: Diakov, P.А., Malashin, A.A., Smirnov, N.N., Tarasov, S.A.
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:In this paper we analyze the wave's effects in the tether of a space tethered system. The space tethered system is considered as a “big” massive satellite or a spacecraft moving along a circular orbit and a smaller satellite (endmass) connected with the first one by flexible and stretchable long tether. A load can be transported along the tether from the big satellite to the endmass. The method of characteristics (wave method) for numerical solving of non-linear wave equations of motion of the tether is proposed. It allows to analyze the dynamics of the system as in the cases when velocity of the load is low (much less that speed of transverse waves) so for the cases when it is equal or greater then speed of transverse waves. We analyze and compare the trajectories of movement of parts of system and system configurations that were obtained by non-wave method when the process of the load transportation is practically non-wave with some results obtained by the wave method. Also we obtain some conditions between the parameters of the system such as endmass, mass of the tether, speed of transverse waves, which provide stable movement of the load along the tether. •Modeling of dynamics of the space tethered system taking into account wave processes in the tether is considered.•Whole system is designed to “clean off” space debris from orbits.•The proposed method can be effectively used to modeling space missions.
ISSN:0094-5765
1879-2030
DOI:10.1016/j.actaastro.2021.10.042