New Delhi: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is ready to launch its first-ever mission to study the sun, called Aditya-L1, on September 2. The mission comes after the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission to the Moon.
Aditya-L1 will be launched at 11.50 am from Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh using a PSLV-C57 rocket. The mission will be India’s first space-based observatory to study the sun and its effects on space weather.
The spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit around the L1 point of the Sun-Earth system, which is a position in space where the gravitational forces of the Sun and the Earth balance each other. This will allow the spacecraft to have a continuous view of the sun without any planetary obstruction.
The spacecraft will carry seven payloads (instruments) to observe different layers of the sun, such as the photosphere, chromosphere, and corona. The payloads will provide data on various aspects of solar physics, such as the heating mechanism of the corona, the dynamics of the solar wind, the origin and evolution of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and the propagation of particles and fields in the interplanetary medium.
Aditya-L1 is a fully indigenous effort with the participation of national institutions, an ISRO official said. The mission is estimated to cost Rs 424 crore, which is US$570 million. The spacecraft is about the size of a refrigerator and weighs about 1,500 kilograms. It will be powered by solar panels and a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. The spacecraft is expected to operate for five years.’
