1A2-G06 Development for Tethered Space Robot Satellite "STARS"

Abstract

The Space Tethered Autonomous Robotic Satellite (STARS) is in development at Kagawa University and was launched by the H-IIA rocket by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on 23 January, 2009. The primary objective of STARS is technical verification of a tethered space robot, which is connected to a mother spacecraft through a tether. Main characteristics of STARS are : (i) it is mother-daughter satellite ; (ii) it becomes a tethered system on orbit ; (iii) the daughter satellite is a tethered space robot. STARS consists of two satellites connected by a tether. One is a mother satellite, which deploys and retrieves a tether connected to the other satellite. The other is a daughter satellite. During tether deployment, the attitude of the daughter satellite is controlled by its own arm link motion, and a camera mounted on the daughter satellite takes a photograph of the mother satellite.