The glideslope approach

Abstract

The problems associated with optimum approaches to an orbiting spacecraft at the completion of rendezvous are exacerbated when the maneuvering spacecraft is to dock with such large and extended structures as the NASA Space Station, which also has a torque equilibrium attitude due to which the docking port does not point directly into the orbital track. Attention is presently given to a candidate 'operationally optimum' approach to a local vertical-local horizontal stabilized target; this glideslope approach is derived on the basis of Hill's relative-motion equations, which have been expanded to encompass constant relative accelerations in a closed form solution. The motion is described in polar coordinates.