The Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO takes aim at another milestone on Saturday, September 2, with the launch of the Aditya-L1 mission to study the Sun, a week after its successful Chandrayaan-3’s landing on the Moon.
Aditya-L1 will carry scientific instruments to observe the Sun’s outermost layers, blasting off at 11:50am for its four-month journey.
What is Aditya-L1?
Aditya-L1 (Aditya in Sanskrit means the Sun) is a satellite dedicated to the comprehensive study of the Sun. It has seven distinct payloads developed, all developed indigenously. Five by the ISRO and two by Indian academic institutes in collaboration with the ISRO.
Will Aditya L1 land on Sun?
No. Aditya-L1 will neither land on the Sun nor approach the Sun any closer. Aditya-L1 will stay approximately 1.5 million km away from Earth, directed towards the Sun, which is about 1% of the Earth-Sun distance. The Sun is a giant sphere of gas and Aditya-L1 would study the outer atmosphere of the Sun.
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The Aditya L1 spacecraft is planned to be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from the Earth.
What is L1 or Lagrange Point 1?
L1 here refers to Lagrange Point 1 of the Sun-Earth system. For common understanding, L1 is a location in space where the gravitational forces of two celestial bodies, such as the Sun and Earth, are in equilibrium. This allows an object placed there to remain relatively stable with respect to both celestial bodies.
Why is ISRO aiming to place Aditya-L1 in Lagrange Point 1?
A satellite placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/eclipse. This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities continuously. The spacecraft carries seven payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere, and the outermost layers of the Sun (the corona) using electromagnetic and particle detectors. Using the special vantage point of L1, four payloads directly view the Sun and the remaining three payloads carry out in-situ studies of particles and fields at the Lagrange point L1.
What information Aditya-L1 is expected to provide?
The suit of Aditya L1 payloads are expected to provide the most crucial information to understand the problems of coronal heating, Coronal Mass Ejection, pre-flare and flare activities, and their characteristics, dynamics of space weather, study of the propagation of particles, and fields in the interplanetary medium, etc.
But why Sun mission?
According to the ISRO, various spacecraft and communication systems are prone to disturbances and therefore an early warning of such events is important for taking corrective measures beforehand. In addition to these, if an astronaut is directly exposed to such explosive phenomena, he/she would be in danger. The various thermal and magnetic phenomena on the Sun are of extreme nature. Thus, the Sun also provides a good natural laboratory to understand those phenomena that cannot be directly studied in the lab.
When Aditya-L1 will launch?
It will launch at 11:50am from the ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, on Saturday.
When Aditya L1 will land?
Aditya L1 is expected to reach its L1 point in the orbit around Sun in 126 days after its launch. However, there is no clear date or time announced by the ISRO till now.
Following its scheduled launch on September 2, Aditya-L1 stays Earth-bound orbits for 16 days, during which it undergoes five manoeuvres to gain the necessary velocity for its journey. Subsequently, Aditya-L1 undergoes a trans-Lagrangian1 insertion manoeuvre, marking the beginning of its 110-day trajectory to the destination around the L1 Lagrange point. Upon arrival at the L1 point, another manoeuvre binds Aditya-L1 to an orbit around L1, a balanced gravitational location between the Earth and the Sun. The satellite spends its whole mission life orbiting around L1 in an irregularly shaped orbit in a plane roughly perpendicular to the line joining the Earth and the Sun.
How Aditya L1 is made?
The seven payloads of Aditya L1 are indigenously developed by different laboratories in the country. Its VELC instrument is made at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore; SUIT instrument at Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics , Pune; ASPEX instrument at Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad; PAPA payload at Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram; SoLEXS and HEL1OS payloads at U R Rao Satellite Centre, Bangalore, and the Magnetometer payload at the Laboratory for Electro Optics Systems, Bangalore. All the payloads are developed with the close collaboration of various centres of ISRO.
What is the budget of Aditya-L1 mission?
₹400 crore is the estimated cost of India’s solar mission.
How many countries have launched space missions to Sun?
The United States and the European Space Agency (ESA) have sent numerous probes to the centre of the solar system, beginning with NASA’s Pioneer programme in the 1960s. But if successful, the latest mission from the ISRO will be the first by any Asian nation to be placed in solar orbit.
