Ground-based experiments of tether deployment subject to an analytical control law

Abstract

Tethered satellite systems (TSSs) have shown great application potential in space missions, such as debris capture, active debris removal, and tether assisted observation. When the tether is deployed on-orbit, it may undergo a taut-slack process. This makes controlling a tether deployment more difficult than controlling a suspended tether. This paper examines a tether deployment subjected to an analytical control law in a ground-based experimental testbed. A dynamics similarity is proposed for the ground-based experiment to reproduce the dynamic environment of the tether deployment of the on-orbit TSS. Gravity compensation is used in the experiment to balance the friction forces and gravitation components that arise from the slight inclination of the testbed. The controlled stability is evaluated by the convergence of the pitch motion of the tether. The experimental results show that the controlled tether is successfully deployed along an assigned direction under a taut state during the deployment phase.