A Little Trouble

Starlight was sailing in the deep dark space, and it slowly approached the silver "docking port".

A pair of long "landing gears" slowly extended out of Starlight. With the landing gears pointed toward the space station docking port, Starlight slowly approached the space station.

Johnson was sitting inside the cabin, and he watched the space station through his porthole. His heart was beating a million miles a minute, and his palms began to sweat.

Spacecraft docking was one of the most difficult areas of aerospace technology.

It required accurate industrial cameras, strong spacecraft materials, and sophisticated engine control technology. It also required a series of software requirements such as computer imaging and vision measurement.

It had especially tough requirements for the orbital altitude and the speed of the spacecraft. The engine control had to be accurate to within a second, a one-second mistake could result in a docking failure.