By Ishita Malakar
India has been placed at the fourth position after the United States, Russia and China to be able to successfully complete the process of docking the two SpaDeX satellites. This has set India apart for being able to use this level of advanced technology.
The two satellites, Chaser and Target, had a trail run. They were placed three meters away from each other in low Earth orbit, which is 450 kilometres away from the planet’s surface. Then eventually they were brought apart and put at a safe distance and meanwhile the engineers at ISRO began collecting data from that trial to prepare for the final docking experiment.
This success came after a trial attempt wherein the space agents brought both of these spacecrafts to a safe distance of three metres and then put them there without any risk.
These two satellites, which weighed about 220 kilograms, were launched on December 30, 2024 from Sriharikota. And according to the plan and the designing of the experiment, they were deployed and set on two different orbits intentionally so as to make sure they drifted apart with a relatively slow velocity. With this docking attempt being set for January 7th at first, it then shifted to January 9th and is right now waiting for a final date to be updated by ISRO.
In the process of Docking, two spacecraft are joined physically by bringing them together under the same orbit while they are also in alignment with each other. This is a tedious process since it needs two fast moving objects to be navigated, while they are already travelling at thousands of kilometres in each hour, that too on the same orbit and in similar position.
ISRO has plans to establish a space station by 2035 and send humans to the moon by 2040. This Docking process is a part of its prerequisite. Hence its combined with global standards with that of innovations that were homegrown, and with India standing out for its efficiency wherein they have only used two motors unlike the International Docking System Standard’24. This experiment became possible with India’ s space capabilities to reach new heights with the new year.