Analytical Approach to Construction of Tetrahedral Satellite Formation

Passive Control Strategy for Multi-Tethered Tetrahedral Formation for Multipoint Scientific Measurements in LEO

“…Note that the use of tethers reduces the complexity of such design because only two points lying in the orbital plane (the CoM of the triangle and the free-flying satellite) need to be taken care of instead of four points in threedimensional space. Otherwise, the use of J2-invariant relative orbits would not be possible [2]. Fig.…”

“…Quality factors have been introduced that measure on the scale from 0 to 1 how close the shape of the tetrahedron is to a regular one. The best orbital configuration found in [2] for a free four-satellite formation guarantees the quality factor along the orbit to be not lower than 0.6. Our study investigates if adding tethered connections to the formation helps in maintaining the required geometry and spending less fuel.…”

“…Analytical studies (e.g. [2]) have been conducted to construct nearly regular tetrahedral formation, and sets of initial conditions that generate optimized orbital configurations of free tetrahedral formation were found. Quality factors have been introduced that measure on the scale from 0 to 1 how close the shape of the tetrahedron is to a regular one.…”