India’s space agency Isro is set to launch a new satellite this week aimed at studying the Sun, just days after the country successfully landed a spacecraft on the Moon as part of its Chandrayaan-3 mission.
The country’s ambitious mission of landing a spacecraft on the Moon’s south pole – a feat achieved by no other country – will now be followed just days later by the launch of the Aditya-L1 satellite.
“The launch of Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun, is scheduled for September 2,” Isro, posted on X, formerly Twitter.
The mission is scheduled to take off via Isro’s PSLV XL rocket from India’s main spaceport, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in southern Andhra Pradesh state’s Sriharikota.
With Aditya – which means “Sun” in Hindi – Isro hopes to observe the activities of the star closest to Earth for the first time from space, and observe its effect on space weather phenomena such as solar storms in real time.
Because various radiations of the Sun do not reach the Earth’s surface, instruments on the planet are unable to detect such radiation, and solar studies based on these radiations could not be carried out.
However, scientists said the new probe can carry out observations of these solar radiations from outside the Earth’s atmosphere – from space.
The Indian agency hopes to fire the spacecraft into a halo orbit in a region known as the Lagrange Point 1 (L1), located about 1.5 million km away from Earth to obtain a continuous and clear view of the Sun.
Isro noted that the spacecraft will first be placed in a Low Earth Orbit, then follow a more elliptical path and will later be launched to L1 by using onboard propulsion.
“The total travel time from launch to L1 would take about four months for Aditya-L1,” the space agency said.
Aditya carries with it seven payloads designed to study the Sun from the special L1 vantage point.
They will study the Sun’s photosphere, chromosphere and its outermost layer – the corona – using electromagnetic as well as particle and magnetic field detectors.
Four payloads will directly view the Sun while the remaining three are designed to carry out studies of particles and fields at L1.
Some of the objectives of the payloads include a study of the Sun’s partially ionised plasma, initiation of the mass ejections of particles – a process known as Coronal Mass Ejection – and to analyse solar flares.
“The mission is our first space-based attempt to understand the Sun’s dynamic activity and monitor our space environment,” solar physicist Dibyendu Nandi, from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Kolkata, posted on X.
Chandrayaan-3: Indian moon spacecraft successfully achieves historic and unprecedented lunar landing
