The Moon done, India is now chasing the Sun.
Ten days after the historic landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the lunar surface, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched its first solar mission, Aditya-L1, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 11.50 am on September 2.
Carried into space by ISRO’s workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), Aditya, which means sun in Sanskrit, embarks on a 127-day journey to study solar winds.
The Aditya L-1 spacecraft separated from the PSLV-C57 rocket at an altitude of 648.7 km above Earth and from there it will travel 1.5 million km to the Lagrange Point 1 (L-1).
Lagrange Points, named after Italian-French mathematician Jospeph Louis Lagrange, are locations in space where the gravitational forces of two celestial bodies such as the Sun and the Earth are in equilibrium. This allows a spacecraft to remain in a fixed position with minimal fuel consumption.
At L-1, the Aditya, with the help of seven payloads, will conduct experiments to understand the dynamics of the solar atmosphere and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are gigantic explosions on the Sun that emit vast amounts of energy; solar wind acceleration.
Also read: Aditya L1 solar mission explained in 10 simple points
This solar mission comes at a time when scientists estimate that the Sun will reach its next peak activity phase around 2025. In solar cycles, the Sun has an 11-year cycle during which it goes from being hyperactive to dormant.
The mission is necessitated since phenomena such as CME, solar winds, etc have wide repercussions for Earth's space-based assets, which are increasingly finding their way into our daily lives from hooking us up to the internet, giving weather updates to guiding us through traffic.
Track our live blog for the latest on Aditya-L1 launch
Aditya-L1's prime payload is the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), which has been developed by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru.
They will study CMEs, which can affect radio transmissions and GPS coordinates on Earth. In 2022, Elon Musk's 40 satellites were knocked out due to a geomagnetic storm triggered by a CME.
The other payloads are SUIT, which will study the photosphere and chromosphere of the Sun, SoLEXS and HEL1OS will study solar flares and PAPA will look into solar winds. Magnetometer will measure magnetic fields and ASPEX will study proton and alpha particles of solar winds.
After separating from PSLV-C57, Aditya-L1 will take around three to four months to L1. Thereafter, the payloads onboard will be switched on and then ISRO will start tests to check if everything is working fine. That may take another four to six months.
(This is a developing story, come back for updates)
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