Verification of Tether Deployment System aboard CubeSat through Dynamics Simulations and Tests

This paper proposes a proper model selection strategies for the dynamic simulations of the tether deployment mission aboard a CubeSat. Space tether technology will enable innovative space missions in the near future. The Coulomb Drag Propulsion (CDP), including electric solar wind sailing, is one of the plausible future technologies. The authors currently develop a CubeSat, FORESAIL-1, for space demonstration of CDP. However, the analytical simulations for the verification and validation of the mission design typically require a high computational cost. This is because a minimum model order is not selected properly. In this study, through observing a preliminary analytical model for tether deployment analysis, the simplest model is chosen to avoid the mission failure modes in each deployment phase.