CUBETUG: A TETHERED SPACE TUG CONCEPT DEMONSTRATION FOR ACTIVE DEBRIS REMOVAL MISSIONS

In the last decade the collaboration between European industries, research institutions and space agencies led to the development of concepts and technologies to enable Active Debris Removal missions. Among all the proposed deorbiting strategies, harpoons and space nets are currently under extensive development; both employs medium-stiffness connection between a servicing vehicle and the debris, to tow the latter in the Earth atmosphere exploiting the propulsion system of the tug satellite. Much work has been done to date to develop and simulate the dynamics of tethered space tug manoeuvres, but despite the robust scientific background, only few experiments have been carried out on ground and in relevant environment, and none in full space environment. In this context, we propose a low-cost CubeSat mission that aims at demonstrating the feasibility of tethered space tug manoeuvres and validating all key technologies, such as tether deployer, tether dynamic instabilities countermeasures, chaser ACDS subsystem, and propulsion system for the re-entry manoeuvre. Moreover, the dynamics of both chaser and target will be closely monitored throughout the mission to assess the system dynamical stability.