India successfully launched its first space docking test on Monday in a historic mission that could put it in an exclusive league of nations to have achieved the feat.
The Space Docking Experiment, or SpaDeX, went up aboard the indigenously developed PSLV rocket from space agencyIsro’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh at 10pm local time on Monday.
The launch suffered an unusual two-minute delay due to what Isro described as a “traffic jam” in space caused by “conjunctions with other satellites in the same orbit”.
“PSLV-C60 successfully launches SpaDeX and 24 payloads,” Isro said about 15 minutes after the launch as the spacecraft reached an altitude of around 470 km.
“The rocket has placed the satellites in the right orbit,” Isro chairman S Somnath said.
The mission to test satellite interlinking in space is seen as vital for Isro’s future missions, including the development of its own space station.
“This technology is essential for India’s space ambitions such as Indian on Moon, sample return from the moon, the building and operation of Bharatiya Antariksh Station, etc,” the agency said in a blog post.
“Through this mission, India is marching towards becoming the fourth country in the world to have space docking technology.”
So far, only the US, Russia and China have successfully demonstrated space-docking technology.
If successful, the mission could also open up a market for Isro to help launch global missions requiring “docking facilities or assembly in space”, astrophysicist Somak Raychaudhary from Ashoka University told Reuters.
The mission is deploying two satellites, each weighing about 220 kg, into orbit and showing power transfer between them once they link together.
Each of the satellites carries advanced payloads, including an imaging system and a space radiation-monitoring device to obtain data for future crewed missions.
Experts say such in-space docking of two crafts is vital for operating space stations, spacecraft control, and payload operations.
The pivotal docking test is slated to take place in about a week around 7 January, according to Isro.
It will involve careful manoeuvers to adjust the relative velocities of the two spacecrafts “with progressively reduced inter-satellite distances of 5km, 1.5km, 500m, 225m, 15m, and 3m”, ultimately leading to their docking, the space agency said.
The mission is expected to be “even more challenging” due to the small sizes and masses of the two crafts which would require finer precision for rendezvous compared to larger probes.
“After successful docking and rigidisation, electrical power transfer between the two satellites will be demonstrated before undocking and separation of the two satellites to start the operation of their respective payloads for the expected mission life of up to two years,” Isro said.
The space agency hopes the mission will be a forerunner for autonomous docking needed for India’s Chandrayaan-4 moon sample return mission planned for 2028.
Monday’s launch marked the first time in India that the rocket and the satellites were integrated and tested by a private company – Ananth Technologies – instead of a state institution.
