Aditya L1: India Launches It's First Solar Mission (Image:screen grab from Aditya-L1 launch live-stream by ISRO)
India has launched its first ever solar observation mission Aditya- L1 on Saturday, just days after the country made a history by touching the Moon”s south pole.
Aditya-L1 was lifted off from the launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre located in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota at 11:50 am. The craft was designed by the scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
“Magnificant lift-off…the thrill is just amazing”, described the commentators on live streaming the launch in ISRO”s social media as well as national TV channel.
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“The launch had been successful and the PSLV is performing normal”, BBC quoted ISRO scientists.
“Aditya L1 shall be the first space based Indian mission to study the Sun. The spacecraft shall be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from the Earth”, said ISRO on social media.
“A satellite placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/eclipses. This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time”, added the space research organisation.
Aditya-L1 is designed to provide remote observations of the solar corona and study the solar atmosphere.
The spacecraft will study solar winds which causes disturbances on Earth and aurora which are formed from interactions between the solar wind streaming out from the sun as well as Earth’s protective magnetic field, or magnetosphere.
The project also aims at understanding how the sun impacts climate change on Earth.
The Aditya-L1 will hitch a ride on India’s heavy-duty launch vehicle, the PSLV, to travel 1.5 million kilometres (932,000 miles). It is only 1% of Earth-Sun distance and the spacecraft will take four months to travel it.
“It will take 125 days to reach at the Lagrange point 1 (L1). We have to wait till then”, said the ISRO chief S Somanath.
Lagrange points are positions in space where objects sent there tend to stay put. These points in space can be used by spacecraft to reduce fuel consumption needed to remain in position. Such points are named after the Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange.
Aditya-L1 has been built at nearly half the cost of Chandrayaan-3. Chandrayaan-3 cost Rs 600 crore. The government sanctioned ₹ 378 crore in 2019 for the mission to study the Sun’s atmosphere. The ISRO hasn’t given an official update on costs yet.
L1, is named after the Hindu god of Sun who is also known as Aditya.
India”s solar mission comes just days after the country successfully landed the world”s first-ever probe near the lunar south pole. With that, India also became only the fourth country in the world to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.
The launch was streamed live on ISRO”s website, Facebook, YouTube, and DD National TV channel.
ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) is the national space agency of India. It operates as the primary research and development arm of the Department of Space, which is directly overseen by the Prime Minister of India.
