Deployment strategies for planar multi-tethered satellite formation

Abstract

This paper presents the deployment strategies for planar multi-tethered satellite formation that spins in orbit plane. By using Lagrange principles, the deployment dynamics, which treat the parent satellite as a finite sized rigid body, are established under gravity gradient perturbation. Comparing with the simplified dynamics that take the parent satellite as mass point, the model in this work enables the investigation on dynamical coupling between parent satellite and tethers. To achieve successful deployment, typical strategies are developed firstly with active gravity gradient compensation, both the tether deployment rate and parent satellite spinning profile are derived under specific motion constraints, after that, the deployment strategy capable of compensating the gravity gradient perturbation is also developed. For the fully deployed system, the minimum spinning rate that ensures the configuration stabilization is mathematically analyzed by employing Jacobi Integrator. Finally, series numerical simulations are performed to validate the proposed deployment strategies.