On-line estimation of inertia parameters of space debris for its tether-assisted removal

•A rigid body model with arbitrary offsets for tethered satellites system is proposed.•A coarse mass of unknown target is estimated during post-capture phase.•Mass of the target is identified accurately during first half of retrieval.•Offsets and moments of inertia are estimated during middle part of retrieval.•Different control schemes are proposed for different phases during the retrieval.

This paper presents a new methodology for on-line inertia parameters estimation for a rigid space debris captured by a tethered system, based on a new dynamics model of the system where the base satellite (chaser) and the space debris (target) are modeled as rigid bodies and the attachment points of the tether are offset from the centers of mass of the two bodies. Parameters estimation of unknown debris is critical for subsequent tasks in the space debris remediation mission, in particular, for debris retrieval and de-orbiting. In the proposed algorithm, the chaser and target are modeled as rigid bodies, the latter with unknown inertia parameters. Then, the parameters identification problem is formulated and solved in three phases. First, a coarse estimate of the target mass is obtained during the post-capture phase, while the length of tether is much longer than the offsets of base and target satellite, and the rigid body model is degenerated to a mass point model. Then, with a proper tension control scheme and the coarse estimate used as an initial guess, the debris is retrieved smoothly and a precise mass estimate is achieved during the first half of the retrieval. Finally, when the tether is retrieved relatively short and the rigid body model is used, moments of inertia and the offsets of the space debris will be estimated with a proper tension control scheme for rigid body model.