Performance and Applicability of Orbital Transfer with Bare Electrodynamic Tether

Electrodynamic tether technology is a novel way to perform spacecraft orbital transfers. This paper focuses on a bare electrodynamic tether (BEDT) system and evaluates its orbital transfer performance and mission applicability. A nonsingular dynamic model of the BEDT orbital transfer system is developed. In particular, the ambient perturbation forces, including the atmospheric drag and Earth oblateness effect, are taken into account. Numerical simulations are then performed to investigate the orbital transfer performance under various mission parameters involving the initial orbital altitude, initial orbital inclination, tether length, tether diameter, spacecraft mass, and power voltage. An orbital transfer scheme is designed to raise and regulate the orbit. Furthermore, to verify its practicability, the mission applicability of the BEDT system is analyzed for Ariane-4’s H10 upper stage by comparison with the conventional chemical propulsion method. Finally, the conclusions and some discussions are presented to support conducting BEDT-based orbital transfer mission planning in practice.