METHOD OF ALIGNING CRUISE ENGINE AXIS IN PARALLEL WITH SPACECRAFT AXIS AND DEVICE FOR REALIZATION OF THIS METHOD Russian patent published in 2006 - IPC B64G1/40 

FIELD: equipment for mounting spacecraft engine systems.

SUBSTANCE: proposed device has fixed and swivel brackets. Fixed bracket has bearing plane for mounting on base plane of spacecraft; it is connected with electric drive through spacer. Second bracket has mounting plane for cruise engine. Output shaft of electric drive is connected with swivel bracket through half-couplings and cross-piece located in spacer. Half-couplings, electric drive shaft and shaft of swivel bracket are provided with end teeth. Number of teeth of electric drive shaft and its half-coupling differs from that of bracket shaft and its half-coupling by one. Proposed method includes assembly of both brackets, electric drive and spacer and placing the assembly for tooling. Swivel bracket shaft is turned clockwise and counter-clockwise by means of electric drive through insignificant number of degrees. Then, out-of-parallelism of mounting and bearing planes, backlash in revolving pair and number of teeth required for turning the half-couplings from midposition of electric drive shaft are determined. Half-couplings are disconnected from electric drive shaft and swivel bracket shaft and turned relative to midposition of electric drive shaft. In case of out-of-parallelism of said planes, swivel bracket and half-couplings are turned through calculated number of teeth clockwise and counter-clockwise, after which half-couplings are connected with shafts retaining their position relative to cross-piece and out-of-parallelism of planes is checked again at application of torque to swivel bracket. At minimum permissible deviation, spacer is secured on fixed bracket. Then, cruise engine is aligned and mounted on spacecraft correcting probable deviation due to turn of half-couplings.

EFFECT: maximum accuracy of aligning spacecraft and cruise engine axes.

3 cl, 2 dwg