Center manifold approach to the control of a tethered satellite system

It is well known that in a linearized analysis the in-plane oscillation of a tethered satellite system about the radial earth pointing position decouples from the out-of-plane oscillation. By tension control, therefore, only the in-plane but not the out-of-plane oscillation can be affected. Hence, using tension control linearization of the equations of motion cannot be used and a nonlinear problem must be treated. For a simple mechanical model of a tethered satellite system we show by means of center manifold theory that for the nonlinear system the out-of-plane oscillations can be stabilized by tension control.