Small spacecraft autonomous rendezvous and docking is an essential technology for future space structure assembly missions. A novel magnetic capture and latching mechanism is analyzed that allows for docking of two CubeSats without precise sensors and actuators. The proposed magnetic docking hardware not only provides the means to latch the Cube-Sats but it also significantly increases the likelihood of successful docking in the presence of relative attitude and position errors. The simplicity of the design allows it to be implemented on many CubeSat rendezvous missions. Preliminary Monte Carlo simulation shows that the proposed docking design leads to successful docking under 3-sigma dispersions for all key system parameters. On the other hand, successful docking is not possible without the aid of the proposed docking subsystem. Future experiments are to be performed at the 3 Degrees of Freedom flat-floor facility at NASA Langley Research Center to demonstrate this novel concept. Extensive simulation and ground testing will provide sufficient confidence that the proposed docking mechanism will perform as expected in the space environment. * Aerospace Engineer, Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate, Vehicle Analysis Branch

An airborne 2-micron double-pulsed Integrated Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) lidar has been developed for atmospheric CO2 measurements. This new instrument has been flown in spring of 2014 for a total of ten flights with 27 flight hours. This IPDA lidar provides high precision measurement capability by unambiguously eliminating contamination from aerosols and clouds that can bias the results.

An integrated Structural-Thermal-Optical-Performance (STOP) model was developed for a field-widened Michelson interferometer which is being built and tested for the High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) project at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). The performance of the interferometer is highly sensitive to thermal expansion, changes in refractive index with temperature, temperature gradients, and deformation due to mounting stresses. Hand calculations can only predict system performance for uniform temperature changes, under the assumption that coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch effects are negligible. An integrated STOP model was developed to investigate the effects of design modifications on the performance of the interferometer in detail, including CTE mismatch, and other threedimensional effects. The model will be used to improve the design for a future spaceflight version of the interferometer. The STOP model was developed using the Comet SimApp™ Authoring Workspace which performs automated integration between Pro-Engineer ® , Thermal Desktop ® , MSC Nastran™, SigFit™, Code V™, and MATLAB ® . This is the first flight project for which LaRC has utilized Comet, and it allows a larger trade space to be studied in a shorter time than would be possible in a traditional STOP analysis. This paper describes the development of the STOP model, presents a comparison of STOP results for simple cases with hand calculations, and presents results of the correlation effort to bench-top testing of the interferometer. A trade study conducted with the STOP model which demonstrates a few simple design changes that can improve the performance seen in the lab is also presented.

Small spacecraft autonomous rendezvous and docking is an essential technology for future space structure assembly missions. A novel magnetic capture and latching mechanism is analyzed that allows for docking of two CubeSats without precise sensors and actuators. The proposed magnetic docking hardware not only provides the means to latch the CubeSats but it also significantly increases the likelihood of successful docking in the presence of relative attitude and position errors. The simplicity of the design allows it to be implemented on many CubeSat rendezvous missions. A CubeSat 3-DOF ground demonstration effort is on-going at NASA Langley Research Center that enables hardware-in-the loop testing of the autonomous approach and docking of a follower CubeSat to an identical leader CubeSat. The test setup consists of a 3 meter by 4 meter granite table and two nearly frictionless air bearing systems that support the two CubeSats . Four cold-gas on-off thrusters are used to translate the follower towards the leader, while a single reaction wheel is used to control the attitude of each CubeSat. An innovative modified pseudo inverse control allocation scheme was developed to address interactions between control effectors. The docking procedure requires relatively high actuator precision, a novel miminal impulse bit mitigation algorithm was developed to minimize the undesirable deadzone effects of the thrusters. Simulation of the ground demonstration shows that the Guidance, Navigation, and Control system along with the docking subsystem leads to successful docking under 3-sigma dispersions for all key system parameters. Extensive simulation and ground testing will provide sufficient confidence that the proposed docking mechanism along with the choosen suite of sensors and actuators will perform successful docking in the space environment.

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