We designed and developed  a mechanism, the “barberpole”, for the control of the deployment of 30Km tether in space in collabortion with Delta-Utec. The barberpole was launched in space in September 2007 and successfully deployed the tether. Full story at the European Space Agency website

Sample publications:

• Menon, C., Kruijff, M., Vavouliotis, A. (2007) Design and testing of a space mechanism for tether deployment, AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, vol. 44, No.4, pp. 927-939.
• Menon, C., Kruijff, M., Vavouliotis, A., Miaris, A., Kostopoulos, V., Angrilli, F. (2005) A European Barberpole Mechanism for Space Tether Deployment, AIAA, 56th International Astronautical Congress, Fukuoka, Japan.
  
• Hyslop, A., Kruijff, M., Menon, C. (2005) Simulating Space Tether Deployment on Earth for the YES2 Satellite, AIAA, 56th International Astronautical Congress, Fukuoka, Japan.

 Collaborations: The project  started in 2002 through a collaboration with Delta-Utec (http://www.delta-utec.com/).