The Indian Space Research Organisaton (ISRO), on Monday (August 28), announced its plans to launch the Aditya-L1 spacecraft on September 2 at 11:50 am, as part of its first-ever solar exploration space mission following the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. The spacecraft would be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre located in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, according to the space agency.
The Aditya-L1 spacecraft has been designed to provide observations of the solar corona and the solar wind at L1, also known as the Sun-Earth Lagrange point, which is located approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
This unique positioning affords a significant advantage — an uninterrupted view of the Sun without any instances of occultation or eclipses. The ISRO emphasised that this attribute will greatly enhance the real-time observation of solar activities and their impact on space weather.
It will also observe the initiation of Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), flares and near earth space weather, according to ISRO.
This will be the first Indian space mission that would study the Sun near an orbit around L1. The spacecraft will be launched by PSLV-C57 rocket to get a deeper understanding of the Sun.
The Aditya-L1 spacecraft will take four months to travel to the L1 orbit after the launch from earth’s surface.
“Initially, the spacecraft will be placed in a Low Earth Orbit. Subsequently, the orbit will be made more elliptical and later the spacecraft will be launched towards the Lagrange Point (L1) by using onboard propulsion,” the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency said in a post on X.
🚀PSLV-C57/🛰️Aditya-L1 Mission:
The launch of Aditya-L1,the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun ☀️, is scheduled for🗓️September 2, 2023, at🕛11:50 Hrs. IST from Sriharikota.Citizens are invited to witness the launch from the Launch View Gallery at… pic.twitter.com/bjhM5mZNrx— ISRO (@isro) August 28, 2023
The Aditya-L1 will carry seven payloads that will observe the photosphere, chromosphere, and the outermost layers of the Sun (the corona) in different wavebands, as reported by PTI. These observations will be facilitated by electromagnetic particles and magnetic field detectors.
ISRO explained: "The suits of Aditya L1 payloads are expected to provide the most crucial information to understand the problem of coronal heating, coronal mass ejection, pre-flare and flare activities and their characteristics, dynamics of space weather, propagation of particle and fields etc."
According to an official, Aditya-L1 is a completely indigenous effort by ISRO, along with contributions from national institutions.
On July 14, the ISRO successfully launched Chandrayaan-3, India's third lunar mission and effort to land on the Moon. The Vikram lander successfully touched down on the Moon on August 23, making India the first nation to land on the lunar surface's south polar region.
(Edited by : Keshav Singh Chundawat, Anand Singha)
First Published: Aug 14, 2023 11:57 AM IST
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