The second docking of satellites on board the PSLV-C60/SpaDeX mission was accomplished on Monday, Union minister Jitendra Singh said in an X post.
“As informed earlier, the PSLV-C60 / SPADEX mission was successfully launched on 30 December 2024. Thereafter, the satellites were successfully docked for the first time on 16 January 2025 at 06:20 AM and successfully undocked on 13 March 2025 at 09:20 AM. Further experiments are planned in the next two weeks,” the minister added.
SpaDeX mission launched on December 30
The SpaDeX mission was launched on December 30 last year when the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) placed in orbit two satellites — SDX01 and SDX02 — to demonstrate the docking experiment in space.
The Indian space agency accomplished the undocking of SpaDeX satellites in the very first attempt on March 13 at 09:20 hours (IST), the agency said in a statement.
The undocking of the satellites took place in a 460-km circular orbit with a 45-degree inclination, it explained. The satellites were orbiting independently and their health is normal, it added.
With this, ISRO had successfully demonstrated all capabilities required for rendezvous, docking and undocking operations in a circular orbit.
“On January 16, we had a major achievement; we successfully docked both the satellites together, and it was rotating as a single body. Then, we wanted to separate it out, the undocking process, for that we carried out a lot of studies and analysis and we made a simulator and carried out 120 simulations, as there should not be any mistakes. On 13th March, at 9:20 am, in the first attempt itself, we succeeded in the undocking process,” ISRO chairman Dr V Narayanan was quoted by ANI as saying.
When asked about India’s future of manned missions, the ISRO chairman underlined that they learn from any small setbacks, “We learn lessons from all small setbacks of us and others. This is a very complex technology, so we learn. Whatever setbacks are there, we are taking care of them, and we are quite confident in the type of effort that is put. The type of dedication of Indian scientists is something else.”