New Delhi: India has become the fourth country to successfully dock two spacecraft in space. Earlier only Russia, America and China have been successful in doing so. ISRO said that the docking experiment was completed on the morning of January 16.
Missions like Chandrayaan-4, Gaganyaan and Indian Space Station depended on the success of this mission. In the Chandrayaan-4 mission, samples of moon soil will be brought to Earth. At the same time, humans will be sent to space in the Gaganyaan mission.
ISRO launched the Space Docking Experiment Mission on December 30 at 10 pm from Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota. Under this, two spacecraft were deployed 470 km above the Earth from the PSLV-C60 rocket.
Both spacecrafts were to be connected in this mission on January 7, 2025, but it was postponed. Then on January 9, docking was attempted, but after bringing the spacecraft close to 3 meters, docking could not happen due to technical difficulties.
At about 10 am ISRO announced Docking Success. “Spacecraft docking successfully completed! A historic moment. Let’s walk through the SpaDeX docking process: Manoeuvre from 15m to 3m hold point completed. Docking initiated with precision, leading to successful spacecraft capture. Retraction completed smoothly, followed by rigidisation for stability. Docking successfully completed. India became the 4th country to achieve successful Space Docking. Congratulations to the entire team! Congratulations to India!”
SpaDeX Docking Update:
🌟Docking Success
Spacecraft docking successfully completed! A historic moment.
Let’s walk through the SpaDeX docking process:
Manoeuvre from 15m to 3m hold point completed. Docking initiated with precision, leading to successful spacecraft capture.…
— ISRO (@isro) January 16, 2025
Spadex Mission Process: Know how both spacecrafts came close
On December 30, two small spacecraft target and chaser were launched in different orbits at an altitude of 470 km from PSLV-C60 rocket.
After deployment, the speed of both spacecrafts became about 28,800 kilometers per hour. This speed was 10 times more than the speed of a bullet.
There was no direct communication link between the two spacecraft. They were guided from the ground. Both spacecraft were brought close to each other.
Laser range finder was used while determining the distance between 5 km to 0.25 km. Docking camera was used for the range of 300 meters to 1 meter. At the same time, visual camera was used at a distance of 1 meter to 0 meters.
After successful docking, electrical power transfer between the two spacecraft will be demonstrated in the coming days. Then the spacecrafts will be undocked and both of them will start operations of their respective payloads. It will continue to provide valuable data for about two years.