The last maneuver to place the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, the first space-based observatory from India to study the Sun, into its ultimate destination orbit, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, will be carried out by ISRO on Saturday. The spacecraft will be launched into a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth system’s Lagrange point 1 (L1), which is located roughly 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, according to ISRO officials. Approximately 1% of the total distance between Earth and the Sun is represented by the L1 point.
They added that the main benefit of having a satellite in a halo orbit around the L1 point is that it can watch the Sun continuously without being obscured by occultations or eclipses. This will be especially useful for monitoring solar activity and how it affects space weather in real time.
“This maneuver, which takes place on Saturday at roughly 4 p.m., will attach the Aditya-L1 to a halo orbit around L1. There’s a chance it will carry on traveling, possibly in the direction of the Sun, if we don’t take action, an ISRO official told PTI on Friday.
On September 2, 2018, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft was launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57) from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota.
It was successfully injected into an elliptical orbit of 235×19500 kilometers around the Earth after a trip of 63 minutes and 20 seconds.
After leaving the Earth’s sphere of influence, the spacecraft made a number of maneuvers and proceeded toward Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (L1).
The spacecraft is equipped with seven payloads that use electromagnetic, particle, and magnetic field detectors to study the photosphere, chromosphere, and the outermost layers of the Sun, or the corona.
“Using the special vantage point L1, four payloads directly view the Sun and the remaining three payloads carry out in-situ studies of particles and fields at the Lagrange point L1, thus providing important scientific studies of the propagatory effect of solar dynamics in the interplanetary medium,” according to NASA.
According to officials, the Aditya L1 payload suites are anticipated to offer the “most crucial information” to comprehend the issues surrounding coronal mass ejection, pre-flare and flare activities, as well as their characteristics, space weather dynamics, and particle and field propagation.
The Aditya-L1 mission’s primary science goals are:
- Investigation of the dynamics of the solar upper atmosphere (corona and chromosphere).
- Investigation of flares, physics of the partially ionized plasma, chromosphere and coronal heating, and the start of coronal mass ejections.
- Observe the plasma and particle environment in-situ, supplying information for the analysis of particle dynamics from the Sun.
- The solar corona’s heating mechanism and physics.
- Coronal and coronal loop plasma diagnostics: density, velocity, and temperature.
- The formation, motion, and source of coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
- Determine which series of events at the chromosphere, base, and extended corona occur first and ultimately result in solar eruptions.
- Magnetic field topology and magnetic field measurements in the solar corona.
- space weather drivers (solar wind dynamics, composition, and origin).
