Space rendezvous

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Space Shuttle Atlantis connected to Russia's Mir Space Station

A space rendezvous between two spacecraft, often between a spacecraft and a space station, is an orbital maneuver where the two arrive at the same orbit, make the orbital velocities the same, and bring them together (an approach maneuver, taxiing maneuver); it may or may not include docking.

Examples:

A visit to the International Space Station (manned) by:
- Soyuz spacecraft (manned)
- Space Shuttle (manned)
- Progress spacecraft (unmanned)
Visit to the Hubble Space Telescope (unmanned), for servicing, by Space Shuttle (manned), and possibly in future by the Hubble Robotic Vehicle (HRV) to be developed (unmanned)
a small unmanned spacecraft, the CX-OLEV, to be launched as a secondary payload, is being developed for rendezvous with a geosynchronous satellite that has run out of fuel, to take over orbital stationkeeping and/or finally bring it to a graveyard orbit, after which the CX-OLEV can possibly be reused for another satellite; gradual transfer from the geostationary transfer orbit to the geosynchronous orbit will take a number of months, using Hall effect thrusters.[1]
Moon landing crew returning from the Moon in the ascent stage of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), to the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) orbiting the Moon (Project Apollo) (both manned)
The STS-49 crew attached a rocket motor to the Intelsat VI (F-3) communications satellite to allow it an orbital maneuver

Alternatively the two are already together, and just undock and dock in a different way:

Soyuz spacecraft from one docking point to another on the ISS
in the Apollo spacecraft, an hour or so after Trans Lunar Injection of the sequence third stage of the Saturn V rocket/ LM inside LM adapter / CSM (in order from bottom to top at launch, also the order from back to front with respect to the current motion), with CSM manned, LM at this stage unmanned:
- the CSM separated, while the four upper panels of the LM adapter were disposed of
- the CSM turned 180 degrees (from engine backward, toward LM, to forward)
- the CSM connected to the LM while that was still connected to the third stage
- the CSM/LM combination then separated from the third stage

Another kind of "rendezvous" was in 1969, when the Apollo 12 mission involved a manned landing on the Moon within walking distance of the unmanned Surveyor 3, which had made a soft landing in 1967. Parts of the Surveyor were brought back. Later analysis showed that bacteria had survived their stay on the Moon.

Anti-satellite weapons partly fall under the category of hostile rendezvous. "Non-energy weapons" are those which do not use explosives or radiation, but just collide.

On August 12, 1962 Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 were placed into adjacent orbits and passed within several kilometers of each other, but did not have the orbital maneuvering capability to perform a space rendezvous. This was also the case on June 16, 1963 when Vostok 5 and Vostok 6 were launched into nearby orbits. G. Salakhutdinov, in a Russian periodical from 1990^[1], relates the following quote:

"The group flight ... well, a day after the launch, the first craft was over Baykanur. If the second craft were launched now with great precision, then they would turn out to be next to each other in space. And that's what was done ... The craft turned out to be 5 kilometers from each other! Well, since, with all of the secrecy, we didn't tell the whole truth, the Western experts, who hadn't figured it out, thought that our Vostok was already equipped with orbital approach equipment. As they say, a slight of hand isn't any kind of fraud. It was more like our competitors deceived themselves all by their lonesome. Of course, we didn't shatter their illusions." — First Deputy Chief Designer Vasily Mishin

The first space rendezvous took place on December 15, 1965 when Gemini 6 maneuvered within 30cm of the passive Gemini 7. Astronaut Wally Schirra accomplished the task. The spacecraft were not equipped to dock and no physical contact took place.

The first space rendezvous with docking took place on March 16, 1966 when Gemini 8 rendezvoused and docked with the uncrewed Agena 8 target vehicle.

[edit] See also

Wally Schirra

[edit] Notes

^ G. Salakhutdinov, "Once more about space, interview with Academician Vasiliy Pavlovich Mishin former chief designer of rocket-space equipment" (English title), Ogenek 34 (August 18-25 1990):4-5.
Translation at http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20000088626_2000122281.pdf , page 379.