So, I spent some time figuring out, what is the record in space station docking times (all times are UTC, information from Wikipedia, if I overseen one mission, my failure).
Shortest time between two dockings:
Possible is the changing of Mir configuration with new Spektr and old Kristall module. Kristall module was undocked on 29th of May 1995 from the "Core -X" docking port and attached to the "Core -Z" port (I couldn't find a time for this, maybe someone could add this?). Kristall docked to "Core -X" on 1st of June 1995 at 00:56. So, this is something between 48 and 72 hours, if someone could the docking time of Kristall to Core -Z on 29th it would be clear.
But this is just a station module and it was docked 5 years earlier and so on, so the shortest time between two spacecrafts would be:
Progress M-63 (7th of February 2008, 14:38) and STS-122 (9th of February 2008, 17:17); this means 2 days, 2 hours and 39 minutes between the dockings
56 minutes in front of
ATV-2 Johannes Kepler (24th of February 2011, 15:39) and STS-133 (26th of February 2011, 19:14); 2 days, 3 hours and 35 minutes
Shortest time between two manned dockings would be:
Soyuz TMA-18 (4th of April 2010, 5:25) and STS-131 (7th of April 2010, 7:44); 3 days, 2 hours and 19 minutes
Shortest time between two unmanned dockings (So, that category would be Shenzou 8 and Progress M13-M tomorrow):
HTV-2 (27th of January 2011, 14:51) and Progress M09-M (30th of January 2011, 2:39); 2 days, 11 hours and 48 minutes
So, I think this list is correct, the moon missions, testing of the Lunar Module, Apollo-Soyuz programm and so on was one docking (as far as I know). Also excluded would be two dockings of the same spacecraft (I think there were some cases during Salyut program to clear the docking port).
But if you find mistakes, missing missions or the docking time of Kristall module, please tell me:thumbup:
