New Delhi: ISRO is ready to launch its solar mission Aditya-L1, after its third lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3, successfully landed on the Moon on August 23. It is expected that the Aditya-L1 mission to the Sun will be launched in September, according to the head of ISRO.
The Aditya-L1 spacecraft has arrived at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in preparation for launch!! 🚀☀️
The launch is currently scheduled to take place in early September on a PSLV-XL rocket. #ISRO #AdityaL1 pic.twitter.com/RZWPmmCnwY— ISRO Spaceflight (@ISROSpaceflight) August 14, 2023
ISRO director S. Somanath said, “Aditya Mission to the Sun is getting ready for launch in September. Gaganyaan is still a work in progress. We will do a mission possibly by the end of September or October to demonstrate the crew module and the crew escape capability which will be followed by many test missions until we do the first manned mission possibly by 2025.”
Aditya-L1 mission to study Sun likely to be launched next month: ISRO chief S Somanath
Read @ANI Story | https://t.co/r9H1Pvkv8L#AdityaL1 #ISRO #SSomanath #Chandrayaan3 pic.twitter.com/5CsDZfYr3C
— ANI Digital (@ani_digital) August 23, 2023
Set in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 in the Sun-Earth system, Aditya-L1 will be India’s first space-based mission dedicated to solar research.
A Lagrange point is a theoretically optimal location for a spacecraft to maintain its position in order to save on fuel. Aditya-L1 selected the L1 point because it provides an unobstructed view of the Sun from the spacecraft. The L1 point is located on the Earth-Sun line. If Aditya-L1 is successfully inserted into the halo orbit around L1, it will have unobstructed, year-round views of the Sun.
PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission:
Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun ☀️, is getting ready for the launch.
The satellite realised at the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Bengaluru has arrived at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota.
More pics… pic.twitter.com/JSJiOBSHp1
— ISRO (@isro) August 14, 2023
Consequently, Aditya-L1 will be in a better position to study solar activity and its impact on space weather than if it had been observed from a different vantage point.
It will study the dynamics of the upper solar atmosphere, observe the plasma environment around the Sun, measure the temperature, velocity, and density of different regions on the corona, identify solar activity sequences, study space weather drivers, study the chromosphere, the initiation of coronal mass ejections and flares, and understand the physics of solar corona and their heating mechanism.
About Aditya-L1
The study states that Aditya-L1 has seven different types of payloads. These may be classified as in-situ and remote-sensing payloads.
ISRO claims that the three in-situ payloads are being used, including the Aditya Solar-Wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX), the Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA), and the Advanced Tri-axial High-Resolution Digital Magnetometers.
The four remote sensing payloads are the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT), the Solar Low-Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS), and the High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS).
ADITYA-L1 PAYLOADS:
Remote Sensing Payloads:
1) Visible Emission Line Coronagraph(VELC)
2) Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT)
3) Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS)
4) High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS) pic.twitter.com/0kivqeWXA6— ISRO ADITYA-L1 (@ISRO_ADITYAL1) August 24, 2023
The functions of VELC, SUIT, SoLEXS, and HEL1OS are to observe the Sun as a star, analyse the solar wind, protons, and heavier ions, analyse electrons in the solar wind, and study the magnetic field.
