Deployment and retrieval of a rotating triangular tethered satellite formation near libration points

• New dynamical equations of rotating triangular tethered formations are developed.
• Numerical simulations are performed for both deployment and retrieval stage.
• The influence of the parameters is studied for both attitude and orbital motion.
• Tether length, rotation and length rate have negligible effect on orbital motion.
• Length rate and rotation rate have some impact on stability of system.

The dynamic stability of a rotating triangular tethered satellite formation near libration points during the deployment and retrieval stages is investigated. Based on Hill׳s approximation, a new dynamical formulation for the attitude and orbital motions of the system is developed. Using numerical simulations, parametric studies of the effects of the orbital amplitude, initial rotation rate, tether length, and length rate are performed. It is shown that different initial rotation rates or length rates have almost no impact on the trajectories of the system׳s centroid. As expected, increasing the initial rotation rate or reducing the length rate can improve the stability of a tethered satellite system.