BENGALURU: Technical issues have erupted on ISRO’s first Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission, with the two spacecraft, SDX-01 and SDX-02, unable to undock.
The two had autonomously docked (get attached to each other) on January 16 — nine days after the initial plan of docking on January 7. Now, the undocking of these satellites, planned to be done by January-end or February first week, is also facing delays due to technical issues. A senior ISRO scientist involved in the SpaDeX mission informed that it is “likely to happen only in March-April”.
Undocking is the separation of two spacecraft, and although SpaDeX is a trial docking/undocking mission, separating the two is extremely crucial in a live mission for successfully meeting its objectives. “Power generation in the two spacecraft is not matching the requirements, and the composite control of both is also taking time due to which the undocking cannot be done,” he said.
SDX-01 and SDX-02, which have remained docked since January 16, carry some new technologies for docking/undocking mechanisms. These include a suite of four rendezvous and docking sensors; power transfer technology; an inter-satellite communication link (ISL) for autonomous communication between SDX-01 and SDX-02, incorporated with inbuilt intelligence to know the states of the other spacecraft; and Global Navigation Satellite System-based novel Relative Orbit Determination and Propagation processor to determine the relative position and velocity of the other spacecraft
No fixed timeline...’
Anomalies in one or more of these systems could be posing technical issues preventing the two spacecraft from undocking smoothly.
The senior scientist said although there is no fixed timeline of when the docking and undocking were to be done, the technical issues now encountered could affect payload experiments on the two spacecraft
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