On libration suppression of partial space elevator with a moving climber

Abstract

This paper develops a high-fidelity and high-accuracy dynamic model to investigate libration suppression of partial space elevator caused by a moving climber through tether deployment and/or retrieval at main and subsatellites. The model is based on the nodal position finite element method in the arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian description. In this approach, moving nodes are assigned to the climber and satellites and variable-length elements are used to represent the movement of climber and tether deployment and/or retrieval. In conjunction with the moving nodes, a merging and dividing element scheme is derived to describe the climber moving across the boundary of tether elements. The results show that the deployment of tether at the subsatellites produce a positive effect to suppress the libration motion of partial space elevator, while the retrieval of tether produce a negative effect.