Advances in dynamics and control of tethered satellite systems

The concept of tethered satellite system (TSS) promises to revolutionize many aspects of space exploration and exploitation. It provides not only numerous possible and valuable applications, but also challenging and interesting problems related to their dynamics, control, and physical implementation. Over the past decades, this exciting topic has attracted significant attention from many researchers and gained a vast number of analytical, numerical and experimental achievements with a focus on the two essential aspects of both dynamics and control. This review article presents the historic background and recent hot topics for the space tethers, and introduces the dynamics and control of TSSs in a progressive manner, from basic operating principles to the state-of-the-art achievements. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10672073) and the Innovation Fund for Graduate Students, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. An erratum to this article can be found at