5 years of tenacity and created history, ISRO’s SpadX took India into the elite club

New Delhi: Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has once again given us a big opportunity to be proud. India raised another flag in the space program when ISRO completed its first satellite docking maneuver on Thursday, January 16. This is an important step forward for many future missions like Chandrayaan-4 and India’s own space station. Multiple sources have confirmed the success of this docking maneuver. ISRO wrote in its X post at 10.25 am on Thursday, January 16, ‘Spadex Docking Update: Control of two satellites as a single object after docking successful. Undocking and power transfer will be investigated in the coming days.
With this success, India has joined an elite group of countries like the US, Russia and China who have this technology. However, ISRO will have to conduct many more docking tests to fully master this technology. The Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX), launched on December 30, joined two separately launched satellites together in an orbit of about 475 km. The final orders for this were placed from ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) located in Bengaluru.

M. Sankaran, director of the UR Rao Satellite Center (URSC), said about the process, ‘We did not automate everything completely. There were five to six phases after the launch. At each phase we were monitoring from the ground and giving green signal before proceeding to the next phase.

ISRO told the whole thing

ISRO used a petal based docking system, which conforms to international standards such as the International Docking System Standard (IDSS). The space agency exercised great caution throughout the operation. Under this, full care was taken of ground simulations which were based on a failure scenario on January 6. This revealed the need for further investigation. Due to this important information ISRO postponed the docking process from January 7 to January 9, and had to postpone it again.

By January 11, both satellites had come at a distance of 1.5 km to 230 meters. ISRO said, ‘Stopped at 230 meter inter-satellite distance (ISD), all sensors are being evaluated. The condition of the spacecraft is normal. A day before this, ISRO had said that the spacecraft were at a distance of 1.5 km and in hold mode. ISRO said, ‘The plan is to cover another distance of up to 500 meters by tomorrow (January 11) morning.’ ISRO had set the satellites to move slowly on January 9 as it had to postpone the docking that day.

The mission had to be postponed due to irregularities

After the launch on December 30, ISRO was preparing for the docking which involves several steps. Each phase was monitored from the ground and green signal was given before proceeding to the next phase. However, it had to postpone its docking attempt several times. On 6 January, a day before the scheduled day of the first docking attempt, ISRO found that the docking process required further validation through ground simulations based on a failure scenario identified that day and rescheduled the docking to 9 January. Was.

ISRO said on January 8, ‘While performing a maneuver to reach 225 meters between the satellites, drift was found to be greater than expected after a non-visibility period. The docking planned for tomorrow (January 9) has been postponed. The satellites are safe. The space agency launched the drift on the Chaser spacecraft late on January 8. The satellites have been named Chaser and Target.

Understand the meaning of success in satellite docking

On January 9, a day after ISRO postponed SpaDeX for the second time due to drifting between satellites, the spacecraft managed to get on a slow drift path. ISRO said on Thursday, ‘…the drift has been stopped and the spacecraft have been kept on a slow drift path to get closer to each other. By tomorrow (January 10), it is expected to reach initial conditions. And on January 12, it tested reaching 15 meters and then 3 meters and then the satellites were moved to a safe distance.’ Docking in space is a complex process and only three other countries have mastered it so far.