Voice 9, News Desk, and Delhi Bureau: The Indian
Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is scheduled to launch the Aditya L1, the
first Indian space-based observatory designed to study the sun, today at 11:50
am from the Sriharikota space station in Andhra Pradesh.
The satellite will be placed in a halo orbit
around the Lagrange point L1 of the Sun-Earth system, which is approximately
1.5 million km from Earth. The Aditya L1 will carry seven different payloads to
conduct a detailed study of the Sun, four of which will observe the light from
the Sun, while the other three will measure in-situ parameters of the plasma
and magnetic fields.
The satellite will take approximately four
months to reach the Lagrange point. The advantage of a halo orbit around the L1
point is that the satellite can observe solar activities without any
obstruction by other celestial activities, such as eclipses. The Aditya L1
mission aims to study the solar winds and the sun's atmosphere.
The spacecraft's data will help identify the
sequence of processes that lead to solar eruptive events and contribute to a
deeper understanding of space weather drivers. The major objectives of India's
solar mission include the study of the physics of the solar corona and its
heating mechanism, the solar wind acceleration, coupling, and dynamics of the
solar atmosphere, solar wind distribution and temperature anisotropy, and the origin
of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and flares and near-earth space weather.
On August 23, India achieved a historic feat as
the Chandrayaan-3 lander module successfully landed on the moon's South Pole,
making it the first country to do so. This achievement brought an end to the
disappointment over the crash landing of the Chandrayaan-2 four years ago.
Overall, India became the fourth country, after the US, China, and Russia, to
have successfully landed on the moon's surface.
