Autonomous Rendezvous, Capture and In-Space Assembly: Past, Present and Future

*† ‡ All mission architectures for exploration involve rendezvous and capture and many include in-space assembly of critical space elements. In order to meet the exploration enterprise goals of affordability, safety and sustainability, the critical capabilities of rendezvous, capture and in-space assembly must become routine and autonomous. For these critical capabilities to become routine, a much more autonomous rendezvous, capture and in-space assembly capability must be employed. Several space programs have developed and routinely performed rendezvous and capture, albeit with significant human intervention from the crew or ground operators. Flight demonstration programs are nearing launch that will demonstrate subsets of the autonomous rendezvous and capture technologies necessary. The assembly of the International and the Russian Mir space stations is proving that in-space assembly is technically feasible. All of these programs are coalescing in the recently announced mission to robotically service the Hubble Space Telescope which will develop and utilize many of the autonomous rendezvous, capture and in-space assembly technologies necessary for the near-term exploration missions. This paper will provide a technical and historical perspective on autonomous rendezvous and capture, from the early days of Apollo through today’s exciting programs and on to the needs of tomorrow’s exploration missions. This historical perspective will be provided from the authors’ unique perspective of supporting every rendezvous, capture and assembly mission since Apollo. We will provide an overview of the requirements for autonomous rendezvous, capture and in-space assembly; define the technologies required to provide safe and routine flight operations for the exploration missions; and apply historical insights to describe how future exploration missions can apply autonomous rendezvous and capture capabilities.