Fly Your Thesis! 2016 - Politethers team

The Politethers team from Politecnico di Milano during the 2016 Fly Your Thesis! programme parabolic flight campaign in the Novespace A310 Zero-G aircraft. The team investigated how a tether strained between two satellites would behave in weightlessness, and what control strategies and algorithms for the tether would be most suitable to allow a “space tug” to execute “orbital towing” manoeuvres to deorbit other satellites.  The experiment showed very promising results at first sight, and now the arduous work of 3D data image analysis starts for the team.

Read more about the team's experiment here