Abstract: Space rendezvous and docking technology is a prerequisite for onorbit services such as assembly, recovery, resupply, maintenance, and crew exchange or rescue of space shuttles, space platforms, and space transportation systems. Cameratype rendezvous and docking sensor (CRDS) is the only sensor which can indicate sixdegreeoffreedom (6DOF) information about relative position and attitude between two vehicles over the final approach phase. And it is comprised of the camera mounted on the tracking aircraft and cooperative target clusters on the target aircraft. The relative position and attitude information can be obtained, adopting the corner reflectors as cooperative targets. Requirements analysis, design analysis, and the results of sensor performance testing with the targets are discussed in detail. The design was successfully applied in autonomous rendezvous and docking missions of SZ11&TG2 and TZ1&TG2. In the future, the design will be revised to better fit the missions such as KJZ and GXC.

Key words: rendezvous and docking, cooperative targets, corner cube reflector, analysis and design