Nonlinear dynamics of flexible tethered satellite system subject to space environment

• Published in: Applied mathematics and mechanics Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 485 - 500
• Main Authors: Yu, Bensong, Jin, Dongping, Wen, Hao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shanghai Shanghai University 01.04.2016; State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
• Subjects: Applications of Mathematics; Classical Mechanics; Fluid- and Aerodynamics; Mathematical Modeling and Industrial Mathematics; Mathematics; Mathematics and Statistics; Partial Differential Equations; flexible tether model; 70E55; O313; V476.5; space environment; 70E50; nonlinear dynamics; stability; tethered satellite system
• ISSN: 0253-4827; 1573-2754
• DOI: 10.1007/s10483-016-2049-9

The paper studies the nonlinear dynamics of a flexible tethered satellite system subject to space environments, such as the J2 perturbation, the air drag force, the solar pressure, the heating effect, and the orbital eccentricity. The flexible tether is modeled as a series of lumped masses and viscoelastic dampers so that a finite multi- degree-of-freedom nonlinear system is obtained. The stability of equilibrium positions of the nonlinear system is then analyzed via a simplified two-degree-freedom model in an orbital reference frame. In-plane motions of the tethered satellite system are studied numerically, taking the space environments into account. A large number of numerical simulations show that the flexible tethered satellite system displays nonlinear dynamic characteristics, such as bifurcations, quasi-periodic oscillations, and chaotic motions.