CONTROL OF ORBITAL DRIFT OF GEOSTATIONARY TETHERED SATELLITES

This paper shows that the state of a dumbbell-type tethered geosynchro nous satellite, in the neighborhood of a stable spoke equilibrium, is completely controllable by tether length in a central inverse squared gravity field in the subspace defined by a constant moment of momentum . The effectiveness of simple open-loop tether length changes on the a djustment of the system state is investigated, as is the usefulness of optimal control in orbit stabilization and orbit adjustment for both the linearized and full nonlinear models.