Enhanced Pre-Sheath Modeling for Tethered Satellite Systems: A Comprehensive Analysis of TSS-1R Electron Current and Experimental Validation

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2-2024

Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Abstract

Improvements of investigations on the Tethered Satellite System (TSS)-1R electron current enhancement due to magnetic limited collections are reported. New analytical expressions are obtained for the potential and temperature changes across the satellite tethering cable pre-sheath. The mathematical treatments are more rigorous than one past approach. More experimental measurements collected in the ionosphere during the TSS-1R mission are adopted for validations. Our relations developed offer two bounding curves for these data points successfully; the average of these two curves is close to the curve-fitting results for the measurements; and an average of 2.95 times larger than the Parker-Murphy theory is revealed. The results indicate that including the pre-sheath analysis is important to compute the electron current enhancement due to magnetic limitations. The second novel contribution includes extra space measurements, which further validated the new theoretical formula.

Publication Title

Theory and Applications of Engineering Research

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