ISRO Postpones Docking of SpaDeX Satellites Again

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has postponed its Space Docking Experiment (SpaDex) mission which was scheduled for Thursday, after the satellites drifted greater than anticipated throughout a manoeuvre, ISRO stated in a press release on Wednesday.

This is the second time that the docking experiment has been postponed.
It was initially scheduled for January 7.

In a submit on X, ISRO stated, “While making a maneuver to succeed in 225 m between satellites, the drift was discovered to be greater than anticipated submit non-visibility interval.”

“The deliberate docking for tomorrow is postponed. Satellites are secure,” it added.

Earlier, on Monday, the ISRO had postponed the docking of its SpaDex mission program, initially scheduled for January 7, 2025. The new date for the docking has been set for January 9, 2025. ISRO has not offered any particular cause for the schedule change.

On December 30, ISRO achieved a historic feat by launching PSLV-C60 with SpaDeX and progressive payloads.

The SpaDeX mission is an economical expertise demonstrator mission for the demonstration of in-space docking utilizing two small spacecraft launched by PSLV. The major goal of the SpaDeX mission is to develop and show the expertise wanted for the rendezvous, docking, and undocking of two small spacecraft (SDX01, which is the Chaser, and SDX02, the Target, nominally) in a low-Earth round orbit.

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Jitendra Singh, final week stated that the SpaDeX mission was named “Bharatiya Docking Technology” as a result of it’s purely an indigenous mission, and India is finishing up the primary such experiment associated to docking expertise.

The Union MoS additional said that SpaDeX’s mission very a lot aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s imaginative and prescient of “Aatmanirbhar Bharat.”

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