MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF DEPLOYMENT DYNAMICS OF A DISTRIBUTED ORBITAL TETHER SYSTEM WITH AN ATMOSPHERIC SOUNDER

This paper analyzes the dynamics of an orbital tether system. The orbital tether system consists of a spacecraft and an atmospheric sounder that are connected by a tether. We take into account the effect of the aerodynamic force acting on all elements of the system for developing a nominal deployment program of the tether system. A linear controller with feedback in terms of tether length and deployment rate for compensating the errors arising from the impact of small perturbations is used for implementing the proposed nominal deployment program. Taking into account the effect of aerodynamic force can significantly decrease the errors of bringing the system to a predetermined vertical state compared with the known deployment programs. The numerical simulations of the deployment process demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed nominal deployment program.