Design and evaluation of dynamic equivalent test platform for thermal vacuum qualification test of docking units

In this paper, a dynamic equivalent test platform for large-mass spacecraft docking in thermal vacuum has been successfully developed. An equivalent-mass docking test principle for reducing the size of the test platform has been introduced. In addition, by adopting a flywheel to simulate part equivalent mass of docking test, the scheme of making a more compact test platform has been realized. Furthermore, the identification of the friction force in the platform to guarantee the equivalent velocity of docking test has been demonstrated. At last, the performance of the test platform has been evaluated through both the docking simulation with software and the docking test on the platform. The results of comparison between the docking simulations and the experimental tests proved the effectiveness of the equivalent-mass docking test principle and also indicated that the docking test platform developed in this work has the ability to simulate the docking process precisely.