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India became the fourth country after Russia, China and the United States to achieve successful “space docking” capabilities, which are essential for future manned and space missions. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said on Thursday that “spacecraft docking [has been] Successfully completed”. The Indian space agency described it as a “historic moment” in a social media post.
The space docking process was one of the primary goals of ISRO’s Spadex mission, which was launched on December 31.
“India becomes the fourth country to achieve successful space docking. Congratulations to the entire team! Congratulations to India!” ISRO posted on X.
PM Modi congratulated
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the ISRO team on achieving the historic achievement. “Congratulations to our scientists at @isro and the entire space fraternity for the successful demonstration of space docking of satellites.”
PM Modi said the successful docking process is “an important step for India’s ambitious space missions in the coming years.”
What is space docking?
“Docking” is when a spacecraft can maneuver and connect to a space station on its own. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration defines docking as “the mating operation where an active vehicle flies to the mating interface under its own power”.
Meanwhile, ISRO pointed out that in-space docking technology is useful when multiple rockets are launched into space to achieve common mission objectives.
How was space docking done?
ISRO explained about the Spadex docking process. “Maneuvering from 15 meter to 3 meter hold point completed,” it said. The docking was initiated with precision, resulting in successful capture of the spacecraft. The return was completed smoothly, followed by rigging for stability. “Docking completed successfully.”
Later, the “successful separation of Spadex satellites” marked another milestone in India’s space journey.
The Spadex mission was launched on a PSLV-C60 rocket with two small satellites – Chaser and Target. Earlier, ISRO reported that a small relative velocity was imparted between the target and the chaser spacecraft at the time of separation from the launch vehicle.
This incremental velocity allowed the target spacecraft to build up a 10–20 km inter-satellite separation with respect to the chaser within a day.
At the end of this “drift arrest maneuver”, the target and chaser were in the same orbit with the same velocity but about 20 km apart, known as the “far rendezvous”.
The chaser then approached the target with progressively shorter inter-satellite distances of 5 km, 1.5 km, 500 m, 225 m, 15 m and 3 m, ultimately resulting in the docking of the two spacecraft.
After successful docking and rigging, electrical power transfer will be performed between the two satellites to begin operating their respective payloads before undocking and separation of both satellites.
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