During the morning hours of Thursday, January 16, the Indian space agency succeeded in mechanically attaching (docking) two satellites flying at velocities over 28,000kmph, almost 470kms above Earth. Docking is an enabling technology that is crucial to transfer humans, cargo or fuel from one spacecraft to another. India's ambitions of returning samples from the moon (Chandrayaan-4) and building the country's own space station require mastery over docking technology. So far, only the US, Russia, Europe, and China have performed space docking, and India joins that elite list with the successful execution of ISRO's SpaDeX (Space Docking Experiment) mission.
ISRO's SpaDeX Mission: India Becomes Fourth Country To Achieve Satellite Docking In Space
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