European Space Mechanisms and Tribology Symposium, Date: 2009/09/23 - 2009/09/25, Location: Vienna, Austria
Publication date:
2009-01-01
Volume:
670 SP
ISSN:
9789292212346
European Space Agency, (Special Publication) ESA SP
Author:
Smet, G
Vrancken, D ; Vandepitte, Dirk ; Steelant, Johan
Keywords:
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Abstract:
This paper presents the conceptual design of the separation system of the International Berthing and Docking Mechanism (IBDM), more extensively described in [1]. This separation system is capable of: - Safely deberthing and undocking vehicles weighing 5 to 80 ton - Minimizing the angular velocity of the separation vehicle to result in a pure translation. This paper contains the functional requirements of the separation system, the requirements for the separation mechanism and the conceptual design of the separation mechanism.