Current collecting systems moving in the ionosphere will induce electromagnetic wave radiation. The commonly used static analysis is incapable of studying the situation when such systems undergo transient processes. A dynamic analysis has been developed, and the radiation excitation processes are studied. This dynamic analysis is applied to study the temporal wave radiation from the activation of current collecting systems in space. The global scale electrodynamic interactions between a space-station-like structure and the ionospheric plasma are studied. The temporal evolution and spatial propagation of the electric wave field after the activation are described. The wave excitations by tethered systems are also studied. The dependencies of the temporal Alfv¿n wave and lower hybrid wave radiation on the activation time and the space system structure are discussed. It is shown that the characteristics of wave radiation are determined by the matching of two sets of charactristic frequencies, and a rapid change in the current collection can give rise to substantial transient radiation interference. The limitations of the static and linear analysis are examined, and the condition under which the static assumption is valid is obtained. ¿1991 American Geophysical Union