Isro

Bengaluru, April 21 (PTI) The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) successfully performed the second dock of satellites as part of its Spadex missions, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Monday. He said more experiments are planned within the next two weeks. Singh, the Minister of Science and Technology, Atomic Energy and Space, said in a post about ‘X’ that the second dock of satellites was successfully reached. He remembered that the PSLV -C60/Space Docking Experiment (Spadex) mission was launched on December 30, 2024. Subsequently, satellites were successfully set for the first time on January 16 and successfully disconnected on March 13, the minister said. “Further experiments are planned within the next two weeks,” Singh added. Later, in a statement, Isro said the docking experiment of the Spadex satellites (SDX-01 and SDX-02) was successfully executed on April 20 at 08.20 o’clock. “Thereafter, power transfer from SDX-02 to SDX-01 satellite as well as vice versa was also exercised and reached on April 21. The experiment involved a heater element in one of the satellites through the power of the other satellite,” it said. The space agency said the duration of power transfer was about four minutes and the performance of the satellites was as expected. “In the second attempt, the docking was completed with full autonomy from an inter-satellite distance of 15 meters to docking. In the first dock effort, an additional holding point was exerted by hand at an inter-satellite distance of 3 meters,” the statement said. The second docking experiment was preceded by detailed soil simulations and on-track trials that gained the experience from the first docking and disconnecting experiments, giving the second Docking demonstration tremendous confidence, it states. “The demonstration of the fully autonomous second dock and power transfer is the completion of an important milestone in the Spadex mission,” the space agency added. According to Isro, the Spadex mission is a cost-effective technology demonstration mission for indoor-docking using two small spacecrafts introduced by PSLV. In space, docking is essential when multiple rocket launches are needed to achieve general mission objectives. This experiment is crucial to Isro’s future missions, such as the Bharatiya Antariksh station and the landing of an astronaut on the moon. First published: 22 Apr 2025, 12:03 am Ist