Aditya L1 successfully undergoes the fourth maneuver on Earth: ISRO

The space agency said the next maneuver Trans-Lagragean Point 1 Insertion (TL1I), a broadcast from Earth, is scheduled for September 19, around 2 a.m. IST.

Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space observatory to study the Sun from a halo orbit around the first Lagrangian point between the Sun and Earth (L1), which is about 1.5 million km from Earth. Meanwhile, the first, second, and third Earth-bound maneuvers were successfully performed on September 3, 5, and 10, respectively.

The maneuvers will be performed during the spacecraft’s 16-day journey around Earth, during which the spacecraft will gain the necessary speed for its onward journey to L1.

What’s next after the fourth maneuver?

With the completion of four orbital maneuvers to Earth, Aditya-L1 will next undergo a Trans-Lagrangian1 insertion maneuver, marking the beginning of its nearly 110-day trajectory to the destination around the L1 Lagrange point. Upon arrival at the L1 point, another maneuver ties Aditya L1 into orbit around L1, a balanced gravity location between the Earth and the Sun. The satellite spends its entire mission life orbiting L1 in an irregularly shaped orbit in a plane approximately perpendicular to the line joining the Earth and the Sun.

ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57) successfully launched the Aditya-L1 spacecraft from the second launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC), Sriharikota, on September 2. After a flight duration of 63 minutes and 20 seconds that day, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft was successfully injected into an elliptical orbit of 235×19500 km around the Earth.

Aditya-L1 will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian point 1 (or L1), which is located 1.5 million km away from Earth towards the Sun. The distance is expected to be covered in four months. It will remain about 1.5 million km from Earth, facing the Sun, which is about 1 percent of the Earth-Sun distance. The Sun is a giant ball of gas and Aditya-L1 would study the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

Aditya-L1 carries seven scientific payloads developed indigenously by ISRO and national research laboratories including the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in Bengaluru and the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune. The payloads are intended to observe the photosphere, the chromosphere and the outer layers of the Sun (the corona) using electromagnetic particle and magnetic field detectors.

ISRO said Aditya-L1 will neither land on the Sun nor come closer to the Sun.

This strategic location will allow Aditya-L1 to continuously observe the Sun without being hampered by eclipses or occultation, allowing scientists to study solar activities and their impact on space weather in real time. Also, the spacecraft data will help identify the sequence of processes that lead to solar eruptions, and contribute to a deeper understanding of the factors that influence space weather.

The main objectives of India’s solar mission include the study of the physics of the solar corona and its heating mechanism, the acceleration of the solar wind, the coupling and dynamics of the solar atmosphere, the distribution of solar wind and temperature anisotropy, and the origin of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and flares and near-Earth space weather.

(With inputs from PTI)

Updated: Sep 15, 2023 08:05 IST