TwinCube—Preliminary Study of a Tether Experiment for CubeSat Mission

The article covers a preliminary research on a Tethered Satellite System based on a 3U CubeSat pico-satellite standard, which main purpose is to perform two-point diagnostic measurements of electromagnetic emissions in near-Earth plasma. Multi-point measurements play a significant role in understanding energy flows driven by Sun as well as terrestrial activity. Since CubeSats are expected to be low-cost and robust, development of a small and efficient plasma diagnostic tool for hardware-restrained CubeSat platform might be important also for future space cluster missions. We propose a TwinCube mission consisting of two sub-satellites that will be preliminarily bonded with lock-and-release mechanisms. During in-orbit operations the mechanism will be released allowing for unwinding of the non-conductive tether and for separating two sub-satellites for up to 1 km. This action is crucial for the mission success and is considered as one of the important technological aspects of the project. Objectives and justification of the mission are outlined in the article, together with basic mission scenario, simulations confirming feasibility of the idea and discussion on assumptions for the mechanical design.