Orbit Maneuver of Spinning Tether via Tidal Force

Abstract

Recently, the spinning tethered system is regarded as a typical and fundamental space structure attracting great interest of the aerospace engineers, and has been discussed primarily for specific space missions in past decades, including on-orbit capture and propellantless orbit transfer etc. The present work studies the dynamical behaviours of a fast spinning tethered binary system under central gravitational field, and derives principles of the basic laws of orbital maneuver. Considering the characteristics of coupled librational and orbital motions, an averaging method is introduced to deal with the slow-fast system equation, thus a definite equivalent model is derived. The general orbit motion is completely determined analytically, including the orbit geometry, periodicity, conversations and moving region etc. Since the possibility of orbit control using tether reaction has been proved by previous studies, special attention is paid to the transportation mode of angular momentum and mechanical energy between the orbit and libration. The effect of tether length change on the orbit shape is verified both in the averaged model and original model. The results show the orbit angular momentum and mechanical energy can be controlled independently, and the operating principles of tether reactions are derived for special modification of orbit shape.