The two Space Docking Experiment satellites that the ISRO aims to unite in orbit are currently separated by a distance of 230 m, with their health status deemed ‘normal’, the space agency said on Saturday. On Friday evening, the satellites were separated by 1.5 kms. ISRO has said that the distance would be reduced to 500 m by Saturday morning. In a post on ‘X’, ISRO said, “Arrested at Inter Satellite Distance (ISD) of 230 m, all sensors are being evaluated. Spacecraft’s health is normal.”
The space agency, however, has not committed to a date for conducting the docking experiments, which will bring the satellites together in space. The SpaDeX project has already missed two announced schedules for docking experiments on Jan. 7 and 9. ISRO successfully launched the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission on Dec. 30.