Simulation of rendezvous and docking between service spacecraft and non-cooperative target with MATLAB-Simulink and STK

A mathematical simulation method is presented to demonstrate proximity operation of rendezvous by utilizing MATLAB-Simulink and Satellite Tool Kit (STK). Relative position and attitude coupled dynamic model is established with kinematic and dynamic coupled effect of relative rotation on relative translation. It's used to illustrate relative motion between docking port on tumbling non-cooperative target spacecraft (T) subjected to external disturbances and another docking port on service spacecraft (S). It is common for spacecraft systems to be modeled with MATLAB-Simulink and STK for the sake of improving data precision and reliability of the numerical simulation. A versatile MATLAB-STK interface is adapted to propagate requisite parameters from MATLAB to STK and save calculation data from STK to MATLAB workspace. Moreover, an animation scenario is built for describing the whole proximity process vividly. Simulation results demonstrate high precision and authenticity of the proposed coupled relative motion model and high efficiency of MATLAB-STK interface is proved.