doi: 10.3850/S2010428611000146

Dynamic Analysis of Deployment and Retrieval of Tethered Satellites using a Hybrid Hinged-Rod Tether Model

Rui Zhong^a and Z. H. Zhu^b Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto,
Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada. ^arzhong@yorku.ca ^bgzhu@yorku.ca

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the deployment and retrieval of a tethered satellite system that is composed by two satellites connected with a flexible tether. A hybrid hinged-rod is developed based on conventional hinged-rod and bead models. The tether is discretized into rigid rods connected by springs and dampers at hinges and the end-satellites are modeled as rigid spheres. Newton-Euler method is applied to establish equations of motion for each rigid body. By adopting an instantaneity assumption and transfer mechanism between beads and rods, the proposed hybrid hinged-rod model is able to model the tether deployment and retrieval processes while avoiding the difficulty encountered due to dimension variation of rod element in deployment and retrieval. Two tethered satel-lite systems moving on a circular orbit with different tether lengths are investigated. Simulation results demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of the newly developed hybrid hinged-rod model by comparing the differences between the results of the bead model and the current model with different rod element lengths.

Keywords: Tethered satellite, Bead model, Hinged-rod model, Deployment, Retrieval.

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