Tension Control Law for Three-Dimensional Deployment of a Geostationary Space Solar Power Station
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 36, Issue 6
Abstract
To collect solar energy in outer space, Tethered Collecting Solar Power Satellite Systems have been proposed by several authors in the last years. A geostationary orbit would be the best location for a space-based solar power. However, a geostationary satellite occupies a single ring in the equatorial plane of the Earth. For this reason, out-of-plane configurations for solar panel systems have been studied by various authors to increase the number of slots over a particular longitude. In this paper, we assume a two-body tethered satellite system, where the microwave transmitting satellite is placed on a geostationary orbit and the tethered solar panel is deployed from the microwave transmitter. A tension control law is derived in conjunction with thruster forces by linearization of the dynamics of the tethered satellite system around an out-of-plane configuration. The stability analysis carried out in this paper shows that the linear motion is asymptotically stable. Results of numerical simulation show that the linear control strategy performs well for the nonlinear system, so that the solar panel achieves a nonplanar configuration.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the financial support of the CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, Brazil), Grant 88887.478205 /2020-00, CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development), Grant 309089/2021-2, and Fapesp (São Paulo Research Foundation, Brazil), Grant 2016/ 24561-0. This paper has been supported by the RUDN University Scientific Projects Grant System, Project No. 202235-2-000.
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Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 36 • Issue 6 • November 2023
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Nov 4, 2022
Accepted: May 16, 2023
Published online: Aug 22, 2023
Published in print: Nov 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Jan 22, 2024
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