Sriharikota: The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO’s) trusted workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL) successfully launched India’s first Solar Mission, – Aditya L1 from Sriharikota Range today. ISRO announced the accomplishment of a successful launch and later confirmed that the vehicle placed the satellite precisely into its intended orbit.
As India’s first solar observatory began its journey to the destination of Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1 (L1), the suits of Aditya L1 payloads are expected to provide the most crucial information to understand the problem of coronal heating, coronal mass ejection, pre-flare and flare activities and their characteristics, dynamics of space weather, propagation of particles and fields among other things.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated scientists and engineers of ISRO for the successful launch of India’s first Solar Mission, Aditya -L1 and stated, “After the success of Chandrayaan-3, India continues its space journey.. Our tireless scientific efforts will continue in order to develop a better understanding of the Universe for the welfare of entire humanity”.
Union Minister of State for Space, Dr Jitendra Singh, who was present during the launch, termed it as India’s “sunshine moment”.
“While the whole world watched this with bated breath, it is indeed a sunshine moment for India,” he said, addressing ISRO scientists and engineers at the Mission Control Room soon after the PSLV-C57 ejected Aditya L1 around 1 pm IST. He added: “Coming close on the heels of the successful Chandrayaan-3 landing, the successful launch of Aditya L1 is also a testimony to the ‘whole of science and the whole of nation’ approach in which we have sought to adopt in our world culture.”
The Minister pointed out that while ISRO executed the vision, the science institutes across the country came forward to contribute in one form or the other, in small ways or big, to this vision. He mentioned the names of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, the National Aerospace Laboratories, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, the NGRI Nagpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Mumbai. He was quick to add that “the list is too long”.
Aditya L1 is the first space-based Indian mission to study the Sun. Through various orbit-raising manoeuvres and the cruise phase over about the next four months, the spacecraft shall be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from the Earth.
A satellite placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/eclipses. This will provide a greater advantage in observing solar activities and their effect on space weather in real-time.
The spacecraft carries seven payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the outermost layers of the Sun (the corona) using electromagnetic particle and magnetic field detectors. 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.
“This will provide a greater advantage of observing solar activities and their effect on space weather in real-time,” ISRO stated.
Science Objectives:
The major science objectives of Aditya-L1 mission are:
- Study of Solar upper atmospheric (chromosphere and corona) dynamics.
- Study of chromospheric and coronal heating, physics of the partially ionized plasma, initiation of the coronal mass ejections, and flares
- Observe the in-situ particle and plasma environment providing data for the study of particle dynamics from the Sun.
- Physics of solar corona and its heating mechanism.
- Diagnostics of the coronal and coronal loops plasma: Temperature, velocity and density.
- Development, dynamics and origin of CMEs.
- Identify the sequence of processes that occur at multiple layers (chromosphere, base and extended corona) which eventually leads to solar eruptive events.
- Magnetic field topology and magnetic field measurements in the solar corona.
- Drivers for space weather (origin, composition and dynamics of solar wind.
– global bihari bureau
