Separation System for Tethered Satellites

Abstract

The success of the TSATT mission is dependent on a successful tether deployment: a flawless separation without tangling due to interference with the separation system. Separation system benchmarks have been researched to help guide our design and establish a foundation for the separation concept. The ideal heritage-flown separation system called the Lightband is not feasible to separate our two payloads due to the cost exceeding $110,000 and possible tether snag issues. The goal for our ME 450 team is to prove that our laboratory can design, fabricate, and test a separation system that can be integrated for separating the two payloads during the TSATT mission.