Electrodynamic tethers are promising for removing debris but may be severed when they collide with orbital debris. Hollow cylindrical tethers (HCTs) had more severance-resistant designs than conventional solid cylindrical tethers (SCTs) because of their larger diameters for the same weight. However, high survivability could not be achieved if the cross-sectional shape of the HCT deviated from a cylindrical one. In this paper, we propose a novel device called a shape keeper (SK) that maintains the shape of the HCT. We propose three SKs made of different materials: aluminum, nonconductive polyurethane foam, and conductive polyurethane foam. The proposed SKs are evaluated in three aspects. First, the collision damage to a HCT with SKs is evaluated through hypervelocity collision experiments. The introduced SK functions as a bumper and suppresses tether damage depending on the collision point. Second, the debris removal time is investigated by considering the influence of the installed SKs on the debris removal mission. Third, the survivability of the HCT with SKs is assessed according to the two aforementioned evaluations. The results indicate that HCTs with SKs are superior to conventional SCTs in terms of survivability with the same weight.


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    Title :

    Shape Keepers of Hollow Cylindrical Electrodynamic Tethers for Space Debris Removal


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2025-01-01




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English