BENGALURU: The two Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) satellites that Isro was hoping to unite early Thursday have drifted too far apart late Wednesday, causing a second postponement of the final procedure in three days.
“While making a maneuver to reach 225m between satellites the drift was found to be more than expected, post non-visibility period. The planned docking for tomorrow (January 9) is postponed. Satellites are safe,” Isro said around 9pm Wednesday.
The space agency had initiated the drift on the chaser spacecraft — the two satellites are designated chaser and target — at about 8:05pm.
After the launch on December 30, Isro has been preparing for the docking, which requires multiple steps/stages, each of which was monitored from the ground and given a go-ahead before proceeding to the next.
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On January 6, a day before the first docking attempt was scheduled, Isro had found that the docking process requires further validation through ground simulations based on an abort scenario it identified on the day. And the docking was rescheduled for January 9.
Docking in space is a complex process and so far, only three other countries — the US, Russia and China — have mastered it.
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