A rotovator, which is also called as a tether propulsion apparatus, is a method of lifting
materials into orbit by the use of a very long tether attached to a geo-stationery satellite. A rotovator is also called by the name of rotary tiller, is a machine for digging earth, named from the manufacture of such instruments. A tether propulsion system is the use of very long, very strong cables (known as tethers) for changing the velocity of a spacecraft.
The tethers may be used to do anything from launching a spacecraft to completely alter its orbit. Spaceflight using this method of propulsion may be significantly cheaper than that using rocket engines. In some cases tether designs use crystalline plastics such as ultra high molecular weight polyethylene, aramid or carbon fiber. Carbon nanotubes could possibly be a future use material as these materials have a tensile strength of at least 60 GPa.
The topic of tether propulsion was found in the works of Tsiolkovsky. He propagated the construction of a tower so high that it reached out into space and would be held in space by the rotational movement of the earth. But it could not be realistically built. Later on its mention was again found in the works of a Russian by the name of Yuri Artsutanov. He wrote in great detail about a tensile cable which would have to be deployed from a geosynchronous satellite in KoM5omolskaya Pravda.
Jerome Pearson then examined synchronous tethers, and he analyzed the lunar
elevator that can go through the L1 and L2 points. Later Hans Moravel also wrote about both synchronous and non-synchronous tethers. He also performed simulations of tapered tethers that could pick up off and place objects into the moon, and other planets. More recently a good deal of research was carried out by Brad
Edwards, and he popularized the subject again in the scientific community so much that it now is an area of active research.
This has resulted in many people believing that this can actually be achieved although it may take time. To give optimum performance at the lowest cost, tethers need to be composed of materials having a high tensile strength and low density. The materials proposed are Kevlar, ultra high weight molecular polyethylene, carbon nanotubes, M5 fibers, and lastly diamond. One material that is having a great potential is M5
fiber. This M5 fiber is lighter than Kevlar. As per the findings of Pearson, Levin, Odson, and Wykes, in their article The Lunar Space Elevator, an M5 ribbon 30mm wide and 0.023mm thk would be able to support 2000 kg on the lunar surface. It would also be able to hold 100 cargo vehicles, each having a mass of 580 kgs, evenly spaced along the length of the elevator.
Other materials are T1000G carbon fiber, Spectra 2000, or Zylon. All these materials
have a breaking length of several hundred kilometers under 1 gram. Rotovator is also called as portmanteau derived from the words rotor and elevator
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