ISRO gearing up for space docking mission by December end: Somanath

ISRO is gearing up for a mission to demonstrate a space docking experiment called SPADEX, onboard its trusted workhorse polar satellite launch vehicle, its chairman S Somanath said here on Thursday.

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The rocket is getting ready and scientists at the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency are expecting a launch later this month, he said.

Thanking officials of NewSpace India Ltd, the European Space Agency (ESA) for the successful launch of PSLV-C59/Probas-3 mission earlier in the day, Somanath, secretary of the Department of Space, said a similar mission (to PSLV-C59-PROBAS-3 mission) was coming up as with the launch of PSLV-C60 in December itself.

“It (The PSLV-C60 mission) is going to demonstrate the space docking experiment called SPADEX. The rocket is just ready now and we are getting ready for the final stage of activities leading to the launch, possibly in December itself,” he said.

On the Proba-3 mission, he said, Thursday’s mission is about Heliophysics (the study of Sun, its planets) and there has been a strong ‘science group’ in India who have a working collaboration with the scientists of the ESA.

In a dedicated commercial mission, ISRO’s PSLV on Thursday successfully placed two satellites of ESA into orbit.