Isro's historic Space Docking Experiment, set for January 7, explained
Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission, scheduled for January 7, 2025. The mission will involve two satellites performing a complex orbital dance before attempting a docking maneouver, a vital step for future space operations, including India’s planned Bharati Antriksh Station.
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How the docking will unfold
The mission will begin with a small velocity difference between the two satellites. At a rate of 10 meters per second, this will cause them to drift apart, with the separation expected to reach approximately 20 kilometers by December 31, 2024. Once the distance is established, Isro will begin to carefully control their relative positions.
“We’ll start using the onboard propulsion systems on one of the two satellites to arrest the drift so that we maintain the 20km distance between the two satellites,” explained M Sankaran, Director at the UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC).
The satellites will remain in the same orbit and travel at the same speed, resembling twins. Following a four-day waiting period to achieve optimal solar orientation, the inter-satellite distance will gradually decrease. “We’ll reduce the 20km gap to 5km, then to 1.5km,” said Sankaran. Once the satellites are within 5 kilometers of each other, an
