But, it worked.
One important requirement of the flight the unusual inclination of the mission orbit - “Conventional” launches from established land-side facilities “might” be able to match orbits but it was much better to launch from an air-dropped platform at a specific point over the Pacific Ocean in a specific direction at a very specific time: Couldn't do that from the existing bases in Florida, French Guinea coast, Vandenburg, or Soviet Union-Chinese bases on land. Unmanned obviously, small payload.
No area and orbital direction limits either when up high with a smaller rocket over the middle of nowhere away from any city or state.
So far, it is flying, in space, in a usable orbit. We'll need time to match orbits and see if the hookup and propulsion parts of the mission work.
Matching the orbits is not a small task. You don’t just speed up from behind and catch up. When you speed up it changes the orbit, for example speeding up in a circular orbit will change the orbit to an elliptical orbit. A maneuver known as a “transfer orbit maneuver will have to be performed, likely a Hohmann transfer orbit maneuver. This will likely involve at least two motor burns. The first burn will move from a circular orbit into an elliptical orbit. Then with the right time delay a second burn will slow the spacecraft from the elliptical orbit back into a circular orbit, and hopefully right next to the target satellite.
What MtnClimber said re: orbits. Uh, may be a link below to a recent topic sidebar about this. The US is the only emerging market on Earth. SWIFT rescue, from the FRchives: