De-orbiting of space debris by means of a towing cable and a single thruster spaceship: whiplash and tail wagging effects

Gabriel Felippe da Cruz Pacheco (1) , Benjamin Carpentier (2) , Nicolas Petit (3)

1 ENSTA Paris - École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées
2 CNES - Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales - Direction Des Lanceurs.
3 CAS - Centre Automatique et Systèmes

This papers exposes two difficulties that are likely to take place during the towing of a space debris. These effects, which could trouble de-orbitation strategies, are visible on simple simulations based on a model of coupled rigid-bodies dynamics. We name them tail wagging and whiplash effects, respectively.

Mots clés: De-orbiting of space debris; towing cable; open-loop design

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]; Automatique / Robotique

Gabriel Felippe da Cruz Pacheco, Benjamin Carpentier, Nicolas Petit. De-orbiting of space debris by means of a towing cable and a single thruster spaceship: whiplash and tail wagging effects. 6th European Conference on Space Debris 2013, Apr 2013, Darmstadt, Germany. pp.1-6. ⟨hal-00873591⟩