Research of docking characteristic of flexible beam based on probe-cone docking mechanism

Abstract It is feasible to consider flexible docking mechanism without buffering mechanism to reduce the docking impact shock for medium and small-sized spacecrafts’ docking. Applying flexible beam technology to space probe-cone docking mechanism, we can get another way to buffer docking impact shock. In this paper, a simplified model of probe-cone docking impact based on the finite element method is built firstly; the influence of flexible structure to impact shock effect is discussed.