Confident of Aditya L1’s insertion in halo orbit around L1: Nigar Shaji

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

solar observatory Aditya L1, which is scheduled to reach its final destination at 4 pm on Saturday told ET, she is confident of the spacecraft’s successful insertion in a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrangian Point L1.

“For the entire global community of heliophysicists, this observatory will be a good source of data. A lot of research can be undertaken, and solar activities can be better understood,” she said.

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Aditya was launched from the Sriharikota spaceport on September 2 and the spacecraft has traversed a distance of 1.5 million km from Earth. The final manoeuvre will involve firing a group of thrusters for a short period of time till 4 pm on Saturday. Aditya L1 has 12 thrusters.

“Once in 45 days, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) would be required to do an orbit maintenance manoeuvre to keep the spacecraft in orbit,” Shaji said.

Otherwise, it may stray from its path depending on the pull of the Sun and Earth's gravitational forces. She said she is confident of Aditya's orbit insertion around L1 at 4 pm, however, there are future windows available for orbit insertion in case of failure tomorrow.

“For any operation in Space, we have to maintain thrust, and we have confidence that it will enter the intended orbit. We have some more windows of opportunities in the future, but it depends on what we achieve tomorrow and what the degree of failure is, if any,” she said.

Four other operational spacecraft at L1 include the United States' National Aeronautics and