Provided herein are various enhancements to spacecraft or other vehicles, including spacecraft docking mechanisms and vehicle mating systems. In one example, a vehicle mating mechanism includes a latch assembly of a vehicle having soft capture elements and hard capture elements. The soft capture elements accept a bar element of a mating vehicle and retain the bar element to within an envelope that provides a soft capture with the mating vehicle. The hard capture elements move within the envelope to engage the bar element and draw the bar element toward the vehicle to provide a hard capture with the mating vehicle. The vehicle mating mechanism can also include a cup-cone interface element of the vehicle that mates with a cup-cone interface element of the mating vehicle during the hard capture to establish an alignment between the vehicle and the mating vehicle.
Spacecraft mating mechanisms
2023-05-09
Patent
Electronic Resource
English
IPC: | B64G Raumfahrt , COSMONAUTICS |
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