NASA/TP-206959, Bangham*, M.E. and Lorenzini**, E. and Vestal, L., Tether Transportation System Study, Program Development Directorate, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL 35812, *Boeing, Huntsville, Alabama, and **Smithsonian Astrophysical, Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 1998, pp. 98, Format(s): PDF 6701k |
The projected traffic to geostationary earth orbit (GEO) is expected to increase over the next few decades. At the same time, the cost of delivering payloads from the Earth's surface to low earth orbit (LEO) is projected to decrease, thanks in part to the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). A comparable reduction in the cost of delivering payloads from LEO to GEO is sought. The use of in-space tethers, eliminating the requirement for traditional chemical upper stages and thereby reducing the launch mass, has been identified as such an alternative. Spinning tethers are excellent kinetic energy storage devices for providing the large delta vee's required for LEO to GEO transfer. A single-stage system for transferring payloads from LEO to GEO was proposed some years ago. The study results presented here contain the first detailed analyses of this proposal, its extension to a two-stage system, and the likely implementation of the operational system
| Keywords: | tethers, orbit transfer, momentum transfer, in-space transportation, upper stages |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | Aeronautics: Aeronautics General |
| ID Code: | 450 |
| Deposited On: | 19 July 2002 |