LABORATORY EVALUATION OF DOCKING CAPABILITIES OF SMALL SPACECRAFT USING A STEWART PLATFORM

CubeSats have the potential to drastically cut costs for future space missions, however, advancements in docking are still needed. This paper aims to look at using a Stewart Platform to achieve this goal. The objectives of this study are to simulate two CubeSats docking using a hexapod and a robotic arm while varying orientations, speed, and lighting conditions to determine if a Stewart Platform is a viable candidate for CubeSat docking. The second objective was to obtain a baseline of human controlled tests for possible future autonomous testing. To conduct these experiments a facility was created to measure and vary these test parameters. For future work tests will be conducted with several pilots.