Relative Motion Control For Two-Spacecraft Electrostatic Orbit Corrections

Prospects of Relative Attitude Control Using Coulomb Actuation

“…Simpler methods such as the point charge approximation and finite sphere model that have been used for Coulomb charge control analysis in the past [19,25,30] are limited to line-of-site forces and incapable of predicting electrostatic torques. The recently developed Multi Sphere Model (MSM) [20] uses a set of conductive spheres throughout the geometry of a spacecraft to capture the 3D electrostatic effects.…”

“…For example, if vehicle 1 is charged negatively using an ion emitter, and the ion emission is aimed at the second vehicle, the latter will charge positively and create an attractive electrostatic force. Such indirect charging is of great interest to electrostatic geostationary debris removal [24,25,36]. The following simple modification of the potential control in Eq.…”

“…In all cases the relative position between the two bodies is held fixed. This is assumed to be achieved with an inertial thruster control strategy on body 1, as is described in Reference [25]. First, the scenario is investigated where the nominal spacecraft potential is zero.…”

“…One motivation of this work is a recently introduced electrostatic tug concept where charge transfer is employed to create an electrostatic force with a space tug to move large geostationary space debris [24]. Here active inertial control is applied to maintain a fixed separation distance while engaging the electrostatic tractor [25]. If the debris rotational momentum could be arrested without physical contact, it would make any docking mission with space debris much simpler.…”

“…If the debris rotational momentum could be arrested without physical contact, it would make any docking mission with space debris much simpler. Other applications include performing general CFF orbit corrections where a sub-set of the cluster nodes have inertial thrusting capabilities, and the remaining objects are electrostatically tugged [25].…”