Source: https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/kantha/sites/default/files/attached-files/sandoval_space_tethers.pdf proposed catch and release cycle of a spinning space tether
Short Definition:
Space tethers are long cables attached to a counterweight. It has many applications in space such as propulsion and momentum
exchange etc. This idea could help lowering the amount of money needed to
transport payload into low earth orbit by hooking onto specialized spacecrafts
in the future and either increasing the speed for space travel or decrease it
to prepare for landing.
Detailed Definition:
Despite recent
achievements in making spacecrafts fully reusable, space travel and space
infrastructure continues to be quite expensive and only reserved for a few
institutions and companies. The aim is to commercialize space, but to achieve
that goal we still need to vastly decrease the amount of money to get payload
into low earth orbit. Skyhooks, a special type of space tethers, could help
lowering the cost of transportation into space. The idea is to attach cable
hundreds or thousands of kilometres to a counterweight and the weight spins in
a circle. The tether will be lowered to be 80-150 kilometres above the earth,
where it can hook onto spacecrafts and let them go at the best point to
maximize speed adjustment. This idea could make reusable rockets much lighter
and cheaper by lowering the amount of rocket fuel needed.
This idea acts as a “orbital battery”, where
decreasing the spacecrafts speed will increase the amount of energy in the
tether and increasing the spacecrafts speed will decrease the amount of energy
in the tether.
Etymology:
Space from Latinspatium
Tether from proto-Germanic teudrą(“rope;cord;shaft”)
Sample Sentence(s):
Space tethers could revolutionize the space industry by lowering the money needed to get payload into low earth orbit.
