India has become the fourth country to successfully dock two spacecraft in space. Before this, only Russia, America and China have been successful in doing this. ISRO said that the docking experiment was completed on the morning of 16 January. Missions like Chandrayaan-4, Gaganyaan and the Indian Space Station depended on the success of this mission. Chandrayaan-4 mission will bring samples of lunar soil to Earth. At the same time, in the Gaganyaan mission, humans will be sent to space. PM Narendra Modi congratulated ISRO on this success and said- “This is an important step for India’s space missions in the coming years.”
ISRO launched the Space Docking Experiment mission on 30 December 2024 at 10 pm from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota. Under this, the spacecraft was launched 470 km above the earth with the PSLV-C60 rocket. In this mission, both the spacecraft were to join on January 7, but it was postponed. Then on January 9 also the docking was postponed due to technical problems. On January 12, the passage was raised 3 meters and the spacecraft were brought back to a safe distance.
On December 30, two small spacecraft target and chaser of different classes were launched from the PSLV-C60 rocket to an altitude of 470 km. Both spacecraft reached speeds of approximately 28,800 km per hour. This speed was 10 times more than the speed of the bullet. There was no direct communication link between the two spacecraft. They were directed from the ground. Both spacecraft were brought close to each other. A laser range finder was used to determine distances between 5 km and 0.25 km. One docking camera was used for a distance of 300 m to 1 m and on the other hand a view camera was used for a distance of 1 m to 0 m.
Electrical energy transfer will be demonstrated to both spacecraft in the coming days following successful docking. The spacecraft will then undock and both will begin handling their respective payloads. It will continue to provide important data for about 2 years.
