ИСТИНА

We consider motions of a space tethered system in the framework of planar elliptic restricted three-body problem. The spacecraft is attached to the smaller primary by a tether of variable length. The goal of the study is to examine the control laws for the tether length that keep the tether's orientation with respect to the primaries. Among the discovered steady state motions there are two types of collinear configurations and two types of oblique ones. Stability of the system is studied analytically and numerically; several criteria of stability are used and compared. The conditions when the tether is stretched are identified for all steady-state configurations. The system in study is shown to possess both regular and chaotic behavior; the dynamical chaos growing from vicinity of separatrix with the increase of tether length is illustrated by the Poincare iterated maps.