Orbit Boosting Maneuvers for Two-Craft Coulomb Formations

作者：Schaub Hanspeter^*; Jasper Lee E Z

来源：Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 2013, 36(1): 74-82.

DOI：10.2514/1.57479

This paper investigates the effectiveness of using active electrostatic charging to perform orbit altitude adjustments of a nominally circular orbit. Coulomb forces are employed to gently pull a charged object, such as space debris or a satellite being repositioned, in the along-track direction. In contrast to prior work, this study uses an enhanced position-dependent electrostatic force model. The charge at a fixed absolute potential is a function of separation distance, size, and charge of the neighboring object. The pulling configuration at a given voltage is shown to provide larger electrostatic forces over a pushing configuration. Further, the pulling configuration provides relative dynamics that are easier to stabilize. Variational equations are employed to estimate the resulting semimajor axis changes. Numerical sweeps are performed illustrating that kilovolt levels of potential are sufficient to achieve kilometer-level radius changes per orbit for geosynchronous orbit regimes. A key new insight is that, with a linear mass to effective radius scaling of the tugged object, a critical mass always exists beyond which the increased capacitance dominates over the mass increase. As a result, using the electrostatic tractor on a multiton geosynchronous orbit object can become easier if the object is larger than this critical mass.

• 出版日期2013-2