page_title: Space tether
section_title: Electrodynamics
hierarchical_section_title: Space tether / Types / Electrodynamics
caption_attribution_description: STS-75 ONBOARD VIEW --- A medium close-up view, captured with a 70mm camera, shows the Tethered Satellite System (TSS) and part of its supportive boom device prior to deployment operations. On February 25, 1996, the crew deployed the Tethered Satellite System (TSS), which later broke free. The seven member crew was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia on February 22, 1996, and landed on March 9, 1996. Crew members were Andrew M. Allen, mission commander; Scott J. Horowitz, pilot; Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, payload commander; and Maurizio Cheli, European Space Agency (ESA); Jeffrey A. Hoffman and Claude Nicollier, ESA, all mission specialists; along with payload specialist Umberto Guidioni of the Italian Space Agency (ASI).
context_page_description: Space tethers are long cables which can be used for propulsion, momentum exchange, stabilization and attitude control, or maintaining the relative positions of the components of a large dispersed satellite/spacecraft sensor system. Depending on the mission objectives and altitude, spaceflight using this form of spacecraft propulsion is theorized to be significantly less expensive than spaceflight using rocket engines.
context_section_description: Electrodynamic tethers are long conducting wires, such as one deployed from a tether satellite, which can operate on electromagnetic principles as generators, by converting their kinetic energy to electrical energy, or as motors, converting electrical energy to kinetic energy. Electric potential is generated across a conductive tether by its motion through the earth's magnetic field. The choice of the metal conductor to be used in an electrodynamic tether is determined by a variety of factors. Primary factors usually include high electrical conductivity and low density. Secondary factors, depending on the application, include cost, strength, and melting point.
  An electrodynamic tether was profiled in the documentary film Orphans of Apollo as technology that was to be used to keep the Russian space station Mir in orbit.
caption: Medium close-up view, captured with a 70 mm camera, shows Tethered Satellite System deployment.
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