Image based guidance for near rendezvous and docking of spacecraft

Autonomous, energy saving and survivable systems are crucial for space related systems in order to achieve sustainable goals. In such systems, instead of a single method, alternative and ancillary methods are required to be used to accomplish space missions successfully, and increase independency of operating systems. In this paper, an image based alternative guidance method is investigated. Hence, independent from radio signaling, spacecraft is able to track the target station as soon as the station is detected by the camera which is mounted on spacecraft. Proposed method can be applied purely at near rendezvous phase and docking since the range of camera is constrained. A camera projection model is derived to estimate relative motion of spacecraft by camera parameters. Smooth approach, collision avoidance and energy saving would be achieved by means of the approaching strategy improved by using this image based method.