The relative equilibria of a tethered gyrostat in a central Newtonian field

The motion of an orbital tether system comprising a massive body and a gyrostat of small mass attached to it by a non-extensible weightless tether is examined. The body performs unperturbed motion in a Kepler orbit. There are several different equilibria of the system relative to a uniformly rotating system of coordinates. These equilibria are interpreted geometrically using Mohr circles. Despite being the simplest example of an orbital tether system with a gyrostat, it exhibits a wealth of dynamic properties. There are also more complex orbital tether systems which contain more than one gyrostat [1].