Question

How do objects dock in space? There's a recent piece of news that Keppler would dock to the ISS sometime this week. I want to know the operational aspects of it - considering the velocity of the objects involved and also the lack of references.

Answer 1

Well, I am pretty sure Kepler is not docking with ISS, because Kepler is orbiting Sun and ISS is in low Earth orbit. But in general, docking is performed over several days with slow adjustment of velocities so orbits match with final stage docking performed with small thrusters usually called linear RCS. What is important when docking is relative velocities which are usually ~ 10cm/s in final stage of docking. The fact that both vehicle are racing with 7km/s around Earth or 30 km/s around the Sun or 200km/s around the Galaxy OR 600km/s vrt. CMB is quite irrelevant. Also, it may be interesting to note that docking spaceships is quite fun. Do try googling for "orbiter" which is a simulator of newtonian spaceship. There, you can launch your space shuttle and dock with ISS. True fun for any real geek :)