Mass ratio of electrodynamic tether to spacecraft on deorbit stability and efficiency

A study is conducted to parametrically investigate the effect of mass ratios of the electrodynamic tether (EDT) system to the main satellite and the subsatellite to the EDT system on the deorbit stability and efficiency by electrodynamic tethers. The system is simplified as an elastic dumbbell, where the EDT is modeled by one elastic bar element, and two satellites are modeled as lumped masses connected to the bar element. The elastic dumbbell is described by the nodal position finite element method, in which the nodal positions instead of displacements are the unknowns.