SpaDeX satellites at distance of 1.5 km, ISRO aims to further drift them to 500 metres by Saturday

Chennai: The two Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) satellites were on Friday night at a distance of 1.5 km and scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are planning to further drift them to 500 metres by Saturday morning.

“Spacecrafts are at a distance of 1.5 km and on hold mode. Further drift to 500 m is planned to be achieved by tomorrow morning,” the ISRO said in a statement.

ISRO was to dock the satellites on January 7 but postponed it to January 9 after the drift between the two spacecraft was found to be more than expected. On Thursday, the agency said the drift between the satellites has been arrested and that the spacecraft are expected to reach initialisation conditions by Friday.

The plan is to reduce the distance between the satellites further to 15m and then 3m from each other before docking them. There is no clarity on when the docking will take place.

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).