Simulation of the Docking Phase for the Smart-OLEV Satellite Servicing Mission

Satellite servicing in GEO in terms of fleet management and life extension is going to be an important element in the telecom satellite operations business from the commercial point of view. The SMART-OLEV (Orbital Live Extension Vehicle) mission concept is based on a chaser satellite that docks at a client satellite and takes over the AOCStasks of the mated configuration and/or performs orbital manoeuvres. The most critical phase within this mission will be the (soft-)docking of both satellites. Extensive simulations of this phase have been performed in order to detect critical issues of the docking strategy and to verify the technical feasibility of the mission. The applied models cover the dynamics of the satellites and their AOCS as well as the applied docking sensors and tools. The FEM-inspired Polygonal Contact Model was used for high fidelity simulation of the physical contact between the satellites. Concluding the docking simulations could successfully support the OLEV-project to achieve the status ready to continue for phases C/D.