India becomes fourth country to achieve space docking

The Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, on Thursday completed the unmanned docking of one satellite onto another, making India only the fourth country to achieve the feat successfully.

“Spacecraft docking successfully completed!” said ISRO in a social media post. “A historic moment,”

The United States, Russia and China are the only other countries to have completed unmanned docking, which is a critical milestone for future space exploration missions.

The Space Docking Experiment, or SpaDeX, mission consisting of two satellites – Target and Chaser – was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Andhra Pradesh on December 30, aboard an indigenously developed Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket.

ISRO had missed two docking schedules, on January 7 and January 9, due to technical difficulties.

The space agency had previously planned to make the satellite docking a public event but switched to a “dock and inform” plan following the two postponements, The Indian Express reported quoting an unidentified senior official.

The postponements came amid a change of leadership at ISRO. On January 7, the Union government appointed V Narayanan as the agency’s new director. He assumed charge on January 14.

The successful mission on Thursday was a trial run. The first Indian mission requiring docking capability is likely to be the Chandrayaan-4, aimed at collecting lunar samples. The mission will include multiple docking…

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