New Delhi: The Aditya-L1 mission is set to be launched at 11:50 am on Saturday, September 2 by ISRO. This latest mission comes within weeks of Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing on the south pole of the Moon.
Citizens can watch the Aditya L1 mission live on the following platforms
Isro Website https://isro.gov.in
Facebook https://facebook.com/ISRO
DD National TV from 11:20 am IST
The Aditya L1 mission is India’s initiative towards exploring the Sun. The polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV) is being used to bring the 1,475 kg spacecraft into low Earth orbit. Following this, the orbit and velocity of the spacecraft around Earth will be increased until it can be slingshot towards the Sun, just as it happened during the Chandrayaan-3 mission.
The budget allocated to Aditya L1 is expected to be in the range of Rs 400 crore.
The spacecraft will be headed towards Lagrange 1, also known as the L1 point which is located between the Earth and the Sun. There are five Lagrange points between any two celestial bodies.
It will take about 120 days (around four months) for ISR’s spacecraft to reach its destination, L1 covering approximately 1.5 million km . This is roughly four times the distance Chandrayaan-3 travelled. Nevertheless it would cover only around one percent of the distance between Earth and the Sun, which will be still 151 million kilometers away.
According to ISRO, the objectives of the sun exploration mission include
- Study of the solar upper atmospheric (chromosphere and corona) dynamics
- Study of the chromospheric and coronal heating, physics of the partially ionized plasma, initiation of the coronal mass ejections, and flares
- Observation of in-situ particle and plasma environment providing data for the study of particle dynamics from the Sun
- Physics of solar corona and the consequent heating mechanism
- Diagnostics of the coronal and coronal loops plasma: Temperature, velocity and density
- Development, dynamics and origin of coronal mass ejections (CMEs)
- Identification of the sequence of processes that occur at multiple layers (chromosphere, base and extended corona) eventually leading to solar eruptive events.
- Tracking magnetic field topology and magnetic field measurements in the solar corona)
- Identification of drivers for space weather (origin, composition and dynamics of solar wind)
Sun missions by other countries
NASA’s “Parker Solar Probe” mission reached 7.8 million km from the Sun’s surface in December 2021. This is the closest any human spacecraft has gotten to the Sun so far.
The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter was also launched in 2022.
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