Watch: Indian space agency ISRO successfully launches SpaDeX mission

India's space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), launched its year-end mission: the "Space Docking Experiment" also known as SpaDex, successfully on Monday (Dec 30).

The mission, on the PSLV-C60 rocket, was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

In a post on X, ISRO said that the mission was launched at 10 pm IST. In a subsequent post, ISRO added, "Successful separation of SpaDeX satellites marks another milestone in India’s space journey."

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A look at the SpaDex mission

As per the ISRO, the primary objective of the SpaDeX mission is to develop and demonstrate the technology needed for rendezvous, docking, and undocking of two small spacecraft (SDX01, which is the Chaser, and SDX02, the Target, nominally) in a low-Earth circular orbit.

In a statement issued earlier, ISRO said, "In addition, SpaDeX, because of its small size and mass, is even more challenging due to the finer precision required for the rendezvous and docking manoeuvres compared to docking two large spacecraft. This mission will be a forerunner for autonomous docking needed for future lunar missions like Chandrayaan-4 without the support of GNSS from Earth."

WION earlier reported that at the time of the ejection, the final stage of the PSLV rocket will be utilised to give a small relative velocity between the Target and Chaser spacecraft at the time of separation from the launch vehicle.

Simply put, the Target satellite will be travelling slightly faster than the Chaser.

Gradually, the satellites will autonomously reduce the distance between themselves by adjusting their respective velocities.