SpaDeX mission
Courtesy ISRO
Chennai: In good news, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday said it has arrested the two Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) spacecraft at an inter-satellite distance of 230 metres. Once the sensors are evaluated and if all goes well, the ISRO is likely to carry out the docking experiment in the next few days.
“Arrested at Inter Satellite Distance (ISD) of 230 m, all sensors are being evaluated. Spacecraft's health is normal,” the ISRO said in an update released Saturday evening. The development comes after ISRO put the satellites on hold mode after bringing them at a distance of 1.5 km on Friday evening.
The distance of the satellites will now be reduced gradually before they are docked. The dock experiment was to be carried out on January 7 but postponed it to January 9 after the drift between the two spacecraft was found to be more than expected. On January 9, the drift between the satellites was arrested.
If the mission is successful, India will be the fourth member to join the elite club of nations possessing space docking technology after the US, China, and Russia.
SpaDeX is aimed at developing and demonstrating crucial technology required to dock and undock spacecrafts in space and is crucial for India’s lunar missions like India’s manned mission to the moon, Gaganyaan, sample return from the Moon, and the building and operation of the planned Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS).