ISRO's SpaDeX mission successfully completes 2nd satellite docking
What's the story
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully achieved the second docking of satellites under its Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission. Union Minister Jitendra Singh announced the feat on Monday, adding that more experiments are lined up in the coming weeks. The PSLV-C60/SpaDeX mission was launched on December 30, 2024, and made India only the fourth country globally to achieve such a feat.
Mission milestones
Initial docking and undocking phases completed
The first docking phase of the SpaDeX mission was successfully completed on January 16, 2025, at 06:20am. This was followed by an undocking phase on March 13, 2025, at 09:20am. Singh confirmed these details in his announcement today. "Glad to inform that the second docking of satellites has been accomplished successfully," he stated.
Project overview
SpaDeX mission: A cost-effective technology demonstrator
The SpaDeX project, as ISRO describes, is a cost-effective technology demonstrator to showcase in-space docking using small spacecraft. The PSLV C60 rocket launched the two small satellites - SDX01 (Chaser) and SDX02 (Target) - along with 24 other payloads. About 15 minutes after liftoff from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, the spacecraft were injected into a circular orbit at an altitude of 475km.