Compass - Space Apps Challenge

Compass| Let's Connect

Let's Connect

For bigger spacecraft capable of executing bigger missions, some of the assembly may be done in space. Your challenge is to design a simple approach that enables components to be assembled in space.

Universal Docking System (UDS) - One mechanism for all spacecrafts

Summary

During the hackathon, we designed a universal and efficient docking system. We have created the 3D structure of the whole system, 2D diagrams of the different parts of the docking system, a presentation and some text documents about the whole background and the process of the docking system. We have also created a web site for our project where you can find all of the above-mentioned creations. For a better understanding visit our web site and find the appropriate diagrams and documents. You can find the links below.

How We Addressed This Challenge

Importance of this project and what we have done :-

We have developed a Universal Docking System which can be used by any spacecraft. Unlike other docking systems, our docking system consists of arms to hold the other spaceship. Usually when docking all errors should be less than 0.2. Therefore it takes more time to align the spaceship to the docking interface. But in our design docking can be done with a comparatively wider range of error. The tilt angle doesn't matter at all. Therefore the whole docking process can be done within less time. With time, the number of space missions increase. Therefore in the future more docking and undocking will happen in the space. Therefore we need to do this process within less time than rather than spending hours. We hope that our project and design will serve as a great support for that.

Our objectives :-

Making a secure connection between spaceships.
Fast and efficient docking process.
Less work need to be done for the pre-docking rendezvous phase.
Higher accuracy.
Ease of use.
Can work even when there's a problem in the soft capture system of the passive object (Emergency scenario)

Important terms :-

Docking - Connecting 2 object such as spaceships and space station in the space.
Active vehicle - The object which is reaching the passive vehicle to dock
Passive vehicle - The object which the active vehicle connects to
Docking Interface - The place/spot where the active vehicle connects/dock with the passive vehicle. Transferring of cargo and people between 2 objects happen through this.

Docking Process :-

Docking system consists of 3 phases.

(For more info and understanding visit our web site)

1. Pre-docking rendezvous phase (Alignments)

There’s a pre-docking Ready to Capture stage for the approach to docking.

There are 4 arms hide inside their casings when they are at rest. (It means that four arms of passive, hide inside casings around the passive when they are not using). Arms are consist of 3 hinges for shoulder, elbow and wrist joints.

When an active vehicle comes to dock with passive, the arms of the passive will be unfolded and stretched as following.

1 -> Unfolding the arms by rotating the front arm from the joint elbow.

2-> Front arm will stretch forward.

When the active vehicle fulfils the following docking requirements, then the four unfolded and stretched arms of the passive vehicle are ready to capture the active vehicle as the following description. This stage is called the Ready to Capture stage.

2.Soft Capturing phase (Temporary connection)

There are two requirements to dock with passive which will be fulfilled by active vehicle.

The distance between active and passive vehicles should be between 150m – 180m
The relative velocity of the active vehicle be between 0.05ms-1 – 0.1ms-1.

The active vehicle is not needed to balance the pitch and yaw of it. During the active vehicle coming towards passive docking interface with fulfilling those docking requirements, at one time the hooks of the arms will grab the active vehicle T shape ring (grabbing ring) as following steps.

In active vehicle, there is a T shape ring around the vehicle for connect with the hooks. (This ring is located in the vehicle outer surface with considering the equalities of inertia)

1 -> Firstly, the hooks and the T shape ring will be connected by magnetic latches on hooks and T shape ring.

2 ->Then the fingers of the hooks will be connected to T shape ring.

After connecting the active vehicle by above mentioned procedure, it will be pulled towards passive docking interface using the contraction of the arms.

Balancing the pitch

In this case, the pitch of the active vehicle should be matched to passive one. So, for this purpose, it can be do by the slightly adjusting arms to upward, downward, left or right which are connected now to active one.

Balancing the yaw

For this case, the yaw of active one will be adjusted by the rotation of the ring in passive (which was the arms was connected) clock wisely or anticlockwise. When rotating the ring, the arms will also rotate. It means the active vehicle also rotate according to the ring because they’re already get connected.

(Those alignment procedures will be controlled by an AI)

Therefore, no need to waste time to align precisely. Because the precise alignment of the active vehicle is adjusting during the pulling towards to passive docking interface.

After the above procedure, finally the active docking interface and passive docking interface will be touched together accurately.

This is the End of the soft capture system.

Then the system goes to the next stage

3.Hard Capturing phase (Actual Docking)

After the Soft Capture, the system goes to the next phase; hard capture where actual docking takes place. When the active docking interface and passive docking interface touch each other the Hard Capture System will start.

In this time, the screw ring of the passive one is at the rest mode. And the screw ring of active one is already depreciated to gap in front of screw ring of passive one. Then the screw ring of passive will rotate and comes toward to active’s screw ring ant get tighten together. Finally, the completion of tighten the screw rings the Hard capture system is over.

Next the active and passive objects deploy the power input/output for the slots claimed. Then the chamber at the middle of the both objects is filled with air and pressurized for a secure hatch opening.

When the power is connected, chambers are pressurized the hard capture is completed and it's safe to open the hatch.

Emergency Scenario :-

When the passive is not working

If the passive ship is out of order the active ship can use his arms to grab the

passive and do the docking procedure. First the active vehicle will be stopped and

a certain distance from the passive vehicle and it will prepare for the Ready to

Capture Stage. The activity will be similar to the case on the passive object.

The two arms on the active ship will grab the grabbing ring of the passive object,

make its yaw, tilt, pitch and make its way towards the soft capture process. After

the soft capture the active space ship will deploy its screw ring into the screw ring

hole of the passive space ship. When the screw ring is successfully connected it

will connect the passive object to the power input and output from the dedicated

ports. It will power the essentials for the pressurization for the middle chamber.

When the active is not working

The same will be happen if the active object is down. The passive object will be

prepared for the ready to capture stage. It will enable it’s for grabbing arms and it

will work towards the soft capture process.in this case the arms will grab the

active object and make its tilt, yaw and pitch from rotating the active object as

needed. When it’s completed it will deploy the screw ring to the screw ring hole

on the active space ship. After that powering will be done through the passive

object. After the pressurizing is done the hatch can be opened.

Importance

This will be very useful on the future when space rescue missions and emergency situations to dock another ship to another without getting out to them space and performing risky space walks.

To dock two vehicles only one object should be active. If both are working

properly then the passive will be the object who is deploying arms for the ready

to capture stage.

How We Developed This Project

As students who are interested in space technology we studied about the international docking standards system and detected some ways to improve it for a secure and fast connection. We got the basic idea of the existing docking system from the #lanuch_America crew dragon capsule docking to the ISS event and saw the ways to improve the system that exist.

We took our approach from the basic level to the highest by studying the whole IDSS interface definition document (IDD) which is uploaded by the NASA, ESA, JAXA, Canadian space center and using it for the past few years since 2010. We took the idea from that and we developed it to become more efficient and speed. By using our idea we can save much time that takes to dock two space ship by reducing the time it takes to calibrate the all alignments by removing some alignments that were needed to calibrate on the IDSS. We are using robotic arms to soft capture the spaceships and it will take care about the yaw, pitch, tilt by itself by rotating the active spacecraft while moving towards the docking interface. Hence NASA is developing space tourism and other space based activities that uses less experienced people on board. It will be very useful if we are using UDC(universal docking system) for a secure connection.

We used many software to explain the new concept of UDS to the reader/researcher/student to make this very easy to understand. We used basic illustrations drawn using Adobe Illustrator and Autodesk scratch. Also we used adobe Photoshop for image editing and enhancing the 3D structures also Microsoft 3D viewer to enhance and view the 3D structures. We used tinker cad to make the 3D objects of the devices. We used Microsoft PowerPoint at the virtual pitching and feedback session. Microsoft word to create the documents. We used the software sublime text to code html for the website we built to showcase the new UDS and used free service from netlify to host the web on the internet. Also used GitHub to host the site.

We ran into many problems during the hackathon main problem was the internet availability for the team mates. We gathered and overcame this problem but it make some tasks painful to do because lack of information shared. Next main problem was as students we are new to lots of work here and we were using some of them for first time. We needed extra time to practice and make our task happen. We overcame this problem by using alternative software to do the same task. We were unavailable to use them to make our product more successful such as Autodesk MAYA because our schools were not available to access to get free student software copies. We also overcame that by using alternative websites.

Software we used:-

· HTML, CSS and JavaScript Language – for Web Designing

· Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator – for 2D graphics

· https://www.tinkercad.com/3D - for 3D graphics

· Microsoft PowerPoint – Electronic Presentation

· Microsoft Word – Text Documents

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

We are mainly using the IDSS IDD (international docking standard system, interface definition

document) to get the idea about the current docking system. This is used in all the modern builds and using in since 2010. We are using that as our main reference to make the idea possible through getting relevant data from each and every system which is now included and worth keeping. Besides that we are using NASA data about in-space assembly data given in the resources and we used ISS videos which are uploaded on YouTube as our references. We also used the common berthing mechanism to get the idea of the arm to make that stronger and smaller. Most of these data is gathered from the NASA website.