TEPCE @ Nanosats Database

Name	TEPCE
Type	CubeSat
Units or mass	1.5U
Organisation	US Naval Research Laboratory
Institution	Military
Entity	Government (Civil / Military)
Nation	US
Partners	U.S. Air Force
Oneliner	Joined by a 1 km tether to test electrodynamic tether propulsion.
Results	Jonathan McDowell reported that change in decay rate on 2020-11-17 suggests tether was deployed. The end-masses were separated on November 15, 2019. The exposed tether increased the area for TEPCE, which resulted in a signiﬁcant increase in the decay rate. The last element set published was on February 2, 2020, which was 78 days after separation of the end-masses. As seen in Fig. 39, the last few element sets exhibited marked increase in decay. The date of the last element set provided by Space-track.org was February 2, 2020, which indicated that was the date TEPCE reentered the atmosphere. The enormous drag produced by the tether shortened the life of TEPCE by some 6 years. It is well known that electrodynamics can further decelerate the orbit of a tethered satellite. Many papers have been published on the deceleration eﬀects of electrodynamics thrusting, [9]. The communications and battery-life issues discussed in previous sections severely limited electrody-namic tether operations once TEPCE‘s tether was deployed. Nonetheless, TEPCE was able to return some interesting physical measurements. Since Stimpy was basically nonoperational after tether deployment, tests in which a bias voltage was to have been applied to its collector tape could not be conducted; in fact, the collector tape was never made part of the electrodynamic circuit.
Sources	[1] [2] [3]
Photo sources	[1] [2]
Keywords	Tether, Propulsion

Related Spacecraft

Name	Status	Launch	Orbit
TEPCE A (Tether Electrodynamics Propulsion CubeSat Experiment)	Reentry 2020-02-01. Was operational (Report from 2022-02-28 and Jonathan McDowell reported that change in decay rate on 2020-11-17 suggests tether was deployed)	2019-06-25	300 x 800 km, 28.5 deg
TEPCE B (Tether Electrodynamics Propulsion CubeSat Experiment)	Reentry 2020-02-01. Was operational (Report from 2022-02-28 and Jonathan McDowell reported that change in decay rate on 2020-11-17 suggests tether was deployed)	2019-06-25	300 x 800 km, 28.5 deg

Last modified: 2023-06-03
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