Engineering Test Satellite-VII (ETS-VII) is a test satellite to perform in-orbit demonstration of autonomous rendezvous docking (RVD) technology, which will be necessary for advanced space activities in the early 21st century. ETS-VII successfully performed the autonomous RVD by unmanned space vehicle for the first time in the world. For an unmanned space vehicle to perform rendezvous to a manned spacecraft, safe approach is needed. So we paid special attention to designing safe approach trajectory. There are other important points for approach trajectory design, for instance, coordination with guidance and control accuracy, performance of navigation sensors, and operability, etc. In this paper, we introduce the points, and show the result of ETS-VII RVD trajectory design.
