Japan will become the third space nation, after the USA and Russia, to conduct a rendezvous and docking in space.
The Engineering Test Satellite, ETS7, to be launched with the US/Japanese Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite by a national H2 booster in the middle of 1997, will consist of a target and a chaser satellite.
These will be used to demonstrate technologies for the automatic rendezvous and docking operations planned for future spacecraft such as the Hope X unmanned, reusable, spaceplane during operations with the International Space Station.
After reaching its 550km circular 35¹-inclination orbit, the ETS7 chaser will deploy the target satellite and manoeuvre to a distance of 10km. Using a global-positioning-system receiver, rendezvous radar and a proximity sensor, the chaser craft is due automatically to rendezvous and dock with the target.
The manoeuvre, which will be repeated five times during the 18-month mission, will not fully replicate the first rendezvous and dock- ings of two craft which were launched separately by the USA (Gemini 8) in 1996 and the former Soviet Union (Cosmos 186-188) in 1967.
Command will be via an Earth station using the Communications and Broadcasting Engineering Test Satellite, which is also scheduled for launch this year.
The ETS7 will also be used to demonstrate the use of a 2m-long telerobotic arm to twice transfer a 20kg unit from one spacecraft to another when docked together.
Source: Flight International
