The NASA has shared the results of the docking tests for the Artemis 3 mission, which will lay the groundwork for long-term scientific exploration on the Moon. The US space agency claims to have tested over 200 different docking scenarios between the Starship landing module and the NASA orbiting spacecraft.
In collaboration with SpaceX, NASA has spent 10 days testing “various approach angles and speeds” at which the Starship landing module could dock with the NASA’s Orion spacecraft while both were in orbit.
“These dynamic tests demonstrated that the Starship system could perform a ‘soft capture’ while acting as an active docking mechanism,” NASA said in a statement. “When two spacecraft dock, one of them assumes the role of the active ‘chaser’ and the other the role of the passive ‘target’.”
To perform a soft capture, the soft capture system (SCS) of the active docking system extends while the passive system of the other spacecraft remains retracted. The latches and other mechanisms of the SCS of the active docking system dock with the passive system, allowing the two spacecraft to dock.
According to NASA engineers, “the results obtained under real conditions with full-scale equipment will serve to validate the computer models of the lunar landing module docking system”.
