Vision system for tether tip-mass detection during deployment on high-eccentricity orbit

Abstract

Bare electrodynamic tethers are proposed in the recent literature as a potential solution for deorbiting large dual-payload adapters, such as Sylda onboard Ariane 5. Deorbit measures are required to mitigate the increase of debris population, and consequent collision risk, in space. The system proposed hereby is made of two bare electrodynamic tethers (BET), deployed with respective tip-masses, along opposite directions from Sylda, after its release in GTO at apogee. This paper investigates the design, optimization and simulation of a vision system to detect the position over time of the tip-masses during deployment. A representative deployment profile is used to select the vision system and optimize its key features, such as the focal length and the number of cameras. This design will also account for minimum cost and small size, that are crucial drivers for deorbit applications.