Rendezvous missions: From ISS to lunar space station

•This paper analyzes the rendezvous of a vehicle launched from the Earth in near-Moon orbit.•Such rendezvous missions have specific constraints on launch windows.•Varying the duration of the flight to the Moon is an efficient tool of phasing.•Rendezvous with “direct” insertion into the Lunar station׳s vicinity is proposed.•The trade-off analysis of the different rendezvous strategies is presented.

There was a lot of experience gained in the rendezvous of different vehicles in the LEO during the years of human space exploration. In the framework of the Apollo program when the astronauts landed on the surface of the Moon, the docking of the Lunar Module launched from the Moon׳s surface to the Apollo Command Module was successfully implemented in the near-Moon orbit. Presently many space agencies are considering a return to the Moon. It is necessary to solve the new task of docking the vehicle launched from the Earth to the long-term near-Moon orbital station taking into account specific constraints. Based on the ISS experience the author proposes a number of ballistic rendezvous strategies that provide for docking to the near-Moon orbital station with minimum propellant consumption. The trade-off analysis of the given rendezvous strategies is presented.