Space
SpaDeX Mission- Successfully Executed the Second Docking
▪ The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully executed the second docking of the two satellites — SDX01 (Chaser) and SDX02 (Target) — that are part of the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission.
▪ The PSLV-C60 / SPADEX mission was successfully launched on 30 December 2024.
▪ Thereafter the satellites were successfully docked for the first time on 16 January 2025.
▪ It is designed to develop and demonstrate the technology needed for spacecraft rendezvous,
docking, and undocking using two small satellites.
▪ The demonstration of this technology is essential for future missions, such as sending an Indian astronaut to the moon, returning samples from the moon, and the building and operation of an Indian space station.
▪ The other aims of the mission include demonstration of the transfer of electric power between the docked spacecraft, which is essential for future applications, such as in-space robotics, composite spacecraft control, and payload operations after undocking.
▪ India became the fourth country after the U.S., Russia, and China to conduct the docking
experiment.
Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT)
▪ Indian astronomers using the Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) have detected and precisely measured the mass of an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole (IMBH) in a faint galaxy located 4.3 million light-years away.
▪ The DOT is the largest optical telescope in India, located at Devasthal, Nainital, Uttarakhand.
▪ It was commissioned in 2016 and operated by the Aryabhatta Research Institute of
Observational Sciences (ARIES)
Comprehensive Remote Sensing Observation on Crop Progress (CROP)
▪ ISRO’s satellites, under the CROP framework, have forecasted India’s wheat production at
122.724 million tonnes across eight major wheat-growing States for the Rabi season 2024-
25.
About (CROP)
▪ It is a semi-automated, scalable remote sensing framework developed to monitor crop sowing,
growth, and harvesting stages in near real-time.
▪ Developed by: National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
▪ It aims to enable systematic, timely, and scalable monitoring of agricultural crops using satellite data and To provide accurate crop condition assessments supporting early agricultural planning and food security strategies.
