CubeSat rendezvous and docking

This animation depicts the rendezvous and docking of a pair of 6-unit CubeSat (10x20x30 cm each) nanosatellites. First supported through ESA’s General Support Technology Programme, Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has been studying CubeSat-based in-orbit demonstration mission to test out new technologies required for planned active space debris removal missions, such as ESA’s own e.Deorbit. Since then, ESA has been supporting PhD research through the Networking/Partnering Initiative with EPFL to develop novel guidance, navigation, and control algorithms to rendezvous and dock nanosatellites. The ability to autonomously rendezvous and dock CubeSats could enable in-orbit assembly of larger structures that simply would not be possible in any other way. The challenge is that CubeSats are faced with tight mass, propellant and power constraints. The control accuracy necessary for docking would be on the order of a single centimetre.