Navigation and steering during manual rendezvous with the space station

Unmanned transport vehicles bringing supplies and equipment to the International Space Station ISS normally approach automatically. This function sometimes fails, and then a manual approach is necessary. A previous publication of the author presented an approach method which uses less fuel than a standard manual approach, using simple visual measurements by the operator to determine the transporter approach path. This paper presents a further refinement, adding a laser range measurement and using improved operator control displays to determine the necessary orbit corrections. In closing, future improvements are discussed, taking into account the actual performance of the transporter maneuvering system.