ISRO has launched Aditya L-1 mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Sept 2, 2023, at 11:50 am IST using PSLV-C57.
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What is Aditya L-1?
Aditya L-1 is a satellite designed to study the Sun in-depth. Initially, it was conceptualised in Jan 2008 by the advisory committee for Space Research. Aditya is a Sanskrit word that means the Sun and L-1 refers to Lagrange Point 1 of the Sun-Earth system. In simple words, Lagrange point is a location in space where the gravitational forces of two celestial bodies are in equilibrium.
In the halo orbit around L-1, It will have the significant advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/eclipse.
Payloads and Cost-
The spacecraft carries seven payloads, four payloads directly view the Sun and the remaining three payloads carry out in-situ studies of particles and fields at the L-1.
ISRO has not said how much the mission would cost but reports in the Indian media put it at ₹378 cr.
What will be the journey period of the mission?
It will take around four months to reach the halo orbit around L-1 point which is 1.5 mn km from the Earth directed towards the Sun which is about 1% of the Earth-Sun distance.
The trajectory of Aditya L-1 mission is shown in the figure below-
Major objectives of the mission-
- Understanding the coronal heating and solar wind acceleration.
- Understanding initiation of coronal mass ejection(CME), flares and near-earth space weather.
- To understand coupling and dynamics of the solar atmosphere.
- To understand solar wind distribution and temperature anisotropy.
Several leaders congratulated ISRO for this movement-
and many more…
Conclusion-
Aditya L-1 is India’s maiden solar mission because of this, more hopes are added to it. Let us hope that the result after four months will be in favour of 140 crore people of India.