Contact Dynamics Analysis for HTV Capturing by SSRMS

Abstract

This paper discusses a contact dynamics which is happened when a massive spacecraft named H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) is captured by a Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS). If the point of the first contact is different from the planned one, then HTV's motion will be completely change and may collide with ISS. Therefore, if we can predict motion of HTV depending on the telemetry data in real operation time, it will be useful to assure safety of the mission. To develop a dynamics simulator, at first, we studied telemetry data obtained in the 1st HTV (HTV-1) capture operation. Then, we developed a simple models with some parameters. In that phase, some preliminary experiment and deliberation in kinematics was conducted to model mechanical behavior and determine parameters. Then, optimization of parameters was conducted to identify some unknown parameters of contact dynamics based on telemetry data. And with following the course of optimization, we discuss key parameters which have large effect on dynamic HTV's behavior and can be used in developing a low calculation-cost model. Finally, we apply key parameters and compare the results with an actual telemetry data of HTV-2 to verify its efficiency.