ISRO Successfully Launches India’s Maiden Solar Mission From Sriharikota

Bengaluru: ISRO on Saturday successfully launched the country’s ambitious Solar Mission, Aditya-L1 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, located on the Eastern coast about 135 km from Chennai.

According to ISRO, Aditya-L1 is the first space-based observatory class to study the Sun and is fired using ISRO’s reliable Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated ISRO scientists and engineers for the successful launch of India’s first Solar Mission.

The country’s maiden solar mission Aditya-L1 is carrying seven different payloads to have a detailed study of the sun, four of which will observe the light from the sun and the other three will measure in-situ parameters of the plasma and magnetic fields.

According to sources, the Aditya-L1 mission is expected to reach the observation point in n 126 days i.e. four months. However, there is no clear date or time announced by ISRO till now. It will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian Point 1 (or L1), which is 1.5 million km away from the Earth in the direction of the sun.

The main objectives of the Solar Mission is

– Study of Solar upper atmospheric (chromosphere and corona) dynamics.

-Study of chromospheric and coronal heating, physics of the partially ionized plasma, initiation of the coronal mass ejections, and flares

-Observe the in-situ particle and plasma environment providing data for the study of particle dynamics from the Sun.

-Physics of solar corona and its heating mechanism.