New Delhi: A day after the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on south polar region of the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) turned its attention to another historic mission — Aditya-L1.
India’s ambitious endeavour to explore the Sun, ISRO plans to launch the mission in the first week of September.
“We are aiming to schedule the launch by the first week of September. It will take an additional 120 days or more to reach L1 after the launch. Following that, we will study sun in deeper ways,” ISRO Chief S Somanath told Times Now.
According to Nilesh M Desai, Director, Space Applications Centre-ISRO Ahmedabad, the Aditya-L1 mission is ready and waiting.
PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission:
Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun ☀️, is getting ready for the launch.
The satellite realised at the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Bengaluru has arrived at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota.
More pics… pic.twitter.com/JSJiOBSHp1
— ISRO (@isro) August 14, 2023
The solar mission will be launched by ISRO’s PSLV rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, in Sriharikota.
Know About India’s Ambitious Solar Mission
It will take around 127 days for the spacecraft to reach its destination, nearly 15 lakh kilometres away from Earth.
Aditya-L1 will be placed in a highly elliptical orbit, allowing it to conduct close observations of the Sun, monitor solar activity and enhance our understanding of the star that sustains life on Earth and has fascinated scientists and space enthusiasts for centuries.
The spacecraft will be equipped with
A Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) will be used for imaging and spectroscopy of the Sun to better understand the celestial body.
Besides VELC, the spacecraft will be equipped with six other instruments that will explore the science of the Sun. Four payloads directly view the Sun from unique vantage point of L1, while three remaining payloads will carry out in-situ studies of particles and fields at the Lagrange point L1.
The L1 point of the Earth-Sun system provides an uninterrupted view of Sun and is currently home to the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Satellite SOHO from NASA.
This position provides a greater advantage of observing solar activities continuously.
