The Shuttle Electrodynamic Tether System (SETS) on TSS-1

The Shuttle Electrodynamic Tether System (SETS) experiment formed part of the scientific experiments comprising the first flight of the NASA/ASI Tethered-Satellite System flown at an altitude of 300 km and an orbital inclination of 28.5 degrees in July–August 1992. The SETS experiment was designed to study electrodynamic behavior of the Orbiter-Tether-Satellite system as well as provide background measurements of the ionospheric environment near the Orbiter. The SETS experiment was able to operate continuously during the mission providing a large data set. Details of the SETS objectives, its instrumentation, and initial results from the mission highlighting voltage, current, and charging measurements are presented here.