ИСТИНА

We study relative equilibria of a Moon-tethered space station taking into account the station dimensions. The tether is supposed to be inextensible and have negligible weight. The equations of motion are deduced in the framework of the restricted circular three-body problem. We write down the expression for the augmented potential with the restriction that reflects the inextensibility of the tether. The critical points of the Routh function correspond to the relative equilibria of the system. We indicate some particular solutions that can be used as nominal motions for the space station functioning. Stability is analyzed examining the restriction of the Routh function's second variation onto the linear manifold defined by the link equation. The sufficient conditions of stability are studied numerically.