Back at the end of December, we covered the launch of a mission from India's Space Research Organization (ISRO) of a pair of satellites that would separate, then rendezvous and dock in orbit. Called SPADEX by the ISRO, news suddenly showed up this morning from Payload (the email newsletter) that the docking had happened successfully. Payload was the only one of my regular sources that had that story, and some quick searching around the ISRO website showed that the docking occurred early on January 16th, their time. In achieving this, India becomes only the fourth country to successfully complete rendezvous and docking of two independent satellites.
Screen capture of a frame from the video at that prior link. The specific frame I grabbed is a computer animation of the two satellites docked; there are some photographs but I find it pretty much impossible to tell what's going on from the two black and white images.
Rendezvous and docking are essential for India's Gaganyaan program with a
first crewed flight currently planned for 2026. Uncrewed test flights
are scheduled for 2025. Then there are other ambitious goals.
The mission is a significant step towards India’s pursuit of its aggressive space goals, including servicing satellites, transferring Moon samples between spacecraft for return to Earth, and assembling its space station in orbit.
The two satellites chased each other for over a week in their 290 mile high orbits. ISRO postponed the attempt twice: first for extra simulation work on
abort scenarios, and later because the satellites drifted too much while
maneuvering for docking. Now that they are docked, ISRO is controlling the duo as a single satellite for a few days, after
which they will undock and operate their respective payloads for at
least two years. Since the docking was six days to a week ago, I wouldn't be surprised to read they've already entered that separated phase of the missions.
No surprise, the Indians building a service station. The hotel is next, probably.
ReplyDeleteSerious now. This post plus last night's post seems about building out the supply chain for long duration missions.
NASA's Gateway has competition.