Abstract
Electro Dynamic Tether (EDT) system is one of the non-chemical propulsion systems on low earth orbit (LEO) in the future. The tether technologies rocket experiment (T-REx) mission was proposed, which is the first attempt in the world to employ a bare tape tether. The sounding rocket S520-25th is provided for the T-REx mission. In this mission, the tape tether is stored in a storage box in a foldaway manner, which is a new concept of tether deployment schemes. To expand EDT system feasibility, a small satellite mission of EDT system, following T-REx mission, is planned, in which a bare tape tether of 3km stored in the folding manner will be deployed. However, shape of the foldaway tape tether storage is concerned to affect the design of the spacecraft in case that the tether length becomes longer, and simple expansion of scale will not be able to cope with this problem. In this paper, in order to improve store efficiency, we expand foldaway manner to the two dimensions, called "cross-shift foldaway storage." To evaluate deployment performance, the tape tether is described as a discriminate model with springs and dampers.
