An interesting analysis was made after the commander of Apollo 14, A. Shepard, docked with the lunar cabin only on the sixth attempt [43]. The head latch of the docking mechanism did not work, and the receiving cone was rotated toward Earth. Tracks on the cone (Figure 1.6) made it possible to determine the errors during the six dockings and evaluate the possiblity of flights in the stressed state. Figure 1.6. Receiving cone with traces of the impacts of the docking mechanism head during the dockings of Apollo 14. 1, 2, 3, 4. wide continuous tracks with weak dents and scratches on the solid lubricant coating; 5, 6 shiny tracks on the coating. Legend in circle: socket of receiving cone. It is assumed that measurement of the parameters of relative motion will be made with greater accuracy in the future. This, along with improvement of spacecraft control in the approach will make it possible to decrease the initial displacements and scatter of velocities. It is also interesting to consider the limits of initial conditions at which one may consider the development of a docking device, which directly joins the docking frames, without using a docking mechanism. Estimates show that the accuracy of the approach systems must be increased by an order of magnitude compared with the existing systems. The values of the lateral and, partially, the angular deviations determine the size of the guiding and buffer elements of the docking mechanism (the diameter of the section of the receivnig cone, the length of the guiding protrusions, etc.). The maximum values of the deviations have a different effect on the selection of element size and the size of different types of docking devices (see sections 2.6.2 and 2.7.2).
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