MISSION PAST RESULTS AND FUTURE PLANS OF SPACE TETHERED AUTONOMOUS ROBOTIC SATELLITE STARS

摘要

STARS project purposes to evaluate and to verify a space mechanical control system by a university satellite, whose characteristics are: it consists of a mother and a daughter (and grandchildren in future) satellites; it becomes a large scale space system using tether; and also robotic mechanical system performs dynamic motion on orbit. The project developed and launched two satellites and one sounding rocket, and is now developing a 2U CubeSat. The first satellite was "STARS," which was launched by the H-IIA rocket on 23,January, 2009. It was a mother-daughter satellite, a tethered satellite, and also a robotic satellite. On 31, August, 2010, TSR-S (Tethered Space Robot -S) was launched by the sounding rocket S-520-25. The proposed attitude control approach for disturbances suppression and change of the desired attitude for a tethered space robot have been evaluated and verified. The second satellite was "STARS-II," which was launched by the H-IIA rocket on 28, February, 2014. Its missions were 300m long tether deployment (5m long on STARS) and Electro Dynamic Tether (EDT) experiment. Now, the project is developing "STARS-C",which will be deployed into orbit from ISS (International Space Station) in 2016. It is a 2U Cubesat connected by 100m long tether. The goal of the project is to perform two kinds of missions. One is space debris removal, and the other is orbital space elevator.