"Everybody on Earth is counting on...": Ex-Commander of International Space Station on India's Sun mission Aditya-L1
Aditya-L1, to the Sun has begun, former commander of the International Space Station Chris Hadfield hailed the «Indian technological prowess» and said that everybody on Earth is «counting on technology».
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The launch of India's Sun mission is scheduled for Saturday at 1150 IST from the launch pad at Sriharikota, with the launch rehearsal and vehicle internal checks all being completed. Aditya-L1 is India's first solar space observatory and will be launched by the PSLV-C57. It will carry seven different payloads to have a detailed study of the sun, four of which will observe the light from the sun and the other three will measure in-situ parameters of the plasma and magnetic fields.
In an exclusive interview with ANI, the former astronaut Hadfield spoke about how the findings of the Aditya L-1 mission will impact human space flight. «So when we put something like Aditya L-1 up there in between us and the Sun to sense those things, to better understand how the sun works and the threats that it has to the earth, it's good for everybody for protecting us as people. But also, of course, our electrical grid, our internet grid, and all of the thousands of satellites that we count on that are up in orbit,» he said.
Aditya-L1 will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian Point 1 (or L1), which is 1.5 million km away from the Earth in the direction of the sun. It is expected to cover the distance in four months' time.
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Hadfield while expressing the expectations of the international space fraternity from Aditya L-1 said, «Well, everybody on the Earth is counting on technology
