What is Aditya-L1 mission? All you need to know about Isro's mission to the sun
ISRO) announced another mission it is carrying. On August 28, the space agency announced the launch of Aditya-L1 mission, which as the name suggests, is aimed to study the prospects of the sun.
What is Aditya-L1 mission?
Launched by the PSLV-C57, Aditya-L1 mission is India's solar mission where the spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system. The total cost of this mission is estimated to be around Rs 400 crore.
The Largerange point as defined by NASA refers to «positions in space where the gravitational forces of a two-body system like the Sun and Earth produce enhanced regions of attraction and repulsion.»
Placing the satellite in a halo orbit around L1 of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from the Earth, enables continuous viewing of the Sun without any eclipses or obstructions.
«This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time,» the ISRO said.
According to ISRO Chairman S Somanath, the mission to the sun will take 125 days to reach the exact radius.
Why is Aditya-L1 important?
Aditya L1 shall be the first space-based Indian mission to study the Sun. Only two other space agencies have had their spacecraft reach L1 or the Lagrange point: USA's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA).
Dipankar Banerjee, Director, Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, told ET, Aditya L1 mission is an observatory class mission.
So far, we've been studying the Sun from India from our ground-based telescopes, which are situated in some of the hill stations like Kodaikanal or ARIES, Nainital, and lakeside observatory.
