The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), on Friday, released a video of the docking of two satellites of the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission. The docking process was carried out on Thursday, January 16. With this manoeuvre, India became the fourth country after the United States, Russia and China to dock satellites in the space.
The video showed the complete docking process. The milestone was achieved after the ISRO brought the two satellites to three metres and then moved them back at a safe distance in its trial attempt.
The space agency launched the mission on December 30. The PSLV C60 rocket, carrying two small satellites — SDX01 (Chaser) and SDX02 (Target) — along with 24 payloads, lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. About 15 minutes later, the two small spacecraft weighing about 220 kilogrammes each were launched into a 475-kilometre circular orbit, as intended.
Notably, the docking mechanism is a low-impact docking system (approach velocity is in the order of 10 mm/s), androgynous (docking systems are identical for both spacecraft, Chaser & Target), and is a peripheral docking system (concept similar to the International Docking System Standard used by other agencies for human missions), accordingto the Indian space agency.
“The mechanism is smaller (450 mm) with one degree of freedom for extension and uses two motors compared to the IDSS (800 mm) on a hexapod with 24 motors. Multiple test beds were established to test the hardware and software simulation of the docking kinematics to verify and finalise the docking approach parameters,” the ISRO said.
Source : https://www.freepressjournal.in/science/watch-how-isro-docked-2-spadex-satellites-in-space