Analysis of dynamic response of tethered space solar power station

A procedure is proposed to establish the dynamical model and analyze the dynamic behaviors of a tethered space solar power station. The solar panels are modeled by the use of absolute nodal coordinate formulation with tight tethered constraints. The constrained Hamiltonian equations of coupled orbital motion, attitude motion and structural vibration are derived by using Legendre transformation and introducing generalized momenta. Based on the Zu Chong-zhi method, the Symplectic Runge-Kutta method is adopted to solve the differential-algebraic equations. Through a numerical experiment, the proposed method and model are verified, which reveals that the constraints and energy of the system are well preserved throughout the simulation. The effects of the tether length, bus mass and orbital altitude on the dynamic behaviors of the tethered space solar power station are finally discussed.