scenarioDebrisReorbitET
Overview
Demonstrates a basic debris reorbit scenario from geostationary orbit using the Electrostatic Tractor (ET) concept and how to visualize the simulation data in Vizard. This scenario shows how to use the Module: etSphericalControl module for ET relative motion control and also illustrates the usage of the Module: msmForceTorque to calculate the electrostatic forces with the Multi-Sphere Method (MSM). This simulation simply uses a single sphere to represent each spacecraft. The servicing satellite is charged to a positive electric potential, while the other satellite (the debris) is uncontrolled and charged to a negative potential. The purpose of this script is to show an explicit method to setup the ET reorbit simulation, and also show how to store the Basilisk simulation data to be able to visualize both satellite’s motions within the Vizard application.
The script is found in the folder src/examples and executed by using:
python3 scenarioDebrisReorbitET.py
The simulation layout is shown in the following illustration. A single simulation process is created which contains both the servicer spacecraft and the associated Flight Software (FSW) algorithm module, as well as the debris object.
When the simulation completes several plots are shown for the separation distance of the two satellites, the inertial position of both spacecraft, and the semi-major axis change of the debris.
Illustration of Simulation Results
show_plots = True
