After unexpected drift, ISRO’s SpaDex satellites begin new docking attempt

Explaining, an official from the space agency said: “After the last manoeuvre, the satellites drifted away, but they were safe. Now, we are re-attempting the entire process. There are certain fixed hold points, the satellites would be brought to these hold points again, before we attempt docking again.”

According to the plan, the Chaser satellite would be progressively brought closer to the Target satellite, holding positions at distances of 5 km, 1.5 km, 500 m, 225 m, 15 m, and 3 m before joining together.

With the docking experiment missing two publicly announced schedules — for January 7 and January 9 — the space agency has now decided to “dock and inform” the public, according to an official.

A successful docking experiment will make India the fourth country in the world — after the US, Russia, and China — to have this capability. ISRO would require the capability to achieve its vision of bringing samples from the Moon, setting up its own space station by 2035, and sending humans to the Moon by 2040.

The docking-undocking capability is for the Bharatiya Antariksh Station that will be built by bringing together five modules, the first of which is planned to be launched in 2028. The planned Chandrayaan-4 mission will also require docking capability because the re-entry module, which will be designed to withstand the heat of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, will be launched separately. The transfer module carrying samples from the Moon will come and dock with the re-entry module in Earth’s orbit.