Print Email Facebook Twitter Climber Motion Optimization for the Tethered Space Elevator Title Climber Motion Optimization for the Tethered Space Elevator Author Williams, P. Ockels, W.J. Faculty Aerospace Engineering Department Aerodynamics & Wind Energy Abstract The tethered space elevator could provide a revolutionary means for enabling cheap transportation to geostationary altitude and beyond. Assuming that such a system can be built, one of the dynamic design problems is determining a means of moving the elevator along the tether so as to minimize the residual librational motion of the elevator ribbon and counterweight. In particular, this paper studies this problem from the point of view of dynamic optimization. A simplified dynamic model of the elevator system is derived that accounts for the fundamental libration mode and the motion of the elevator. The model is used to solve an optimal control problem that results in zero final librational motion of the ribbon. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6348ff23-1d7d-49f2-bf93-f08a693b5fbc Publisher American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Source AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference and Exhibition, Honolulu, Hawaii, 18-21 August 2008 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type conference paper Rights (c) 2008 Williams, P.; Ockels, W.J. Files PDF Williams.pdf 809.62 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:6348ff23-1d7d-49f2-bf93-f08a693b5fbc/datastream/OBJ/view