India Successfully Launches its First Solar Mission, Aditya L1

SRIHARIKOTA: After the success of the recent lunar mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched its first-ever solar mission on Saturday. The probe for the solar mission was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Named the Aditya L1, this mission is expected to collect more information about the sun.

The Indian Space Research Organisation used a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV to launch this craft. Aditya L1 is a space-based observation project of the sun and will collect valuable information about the star and several other phenomena related to the sun. Apart from other instruments, the craft has 7 specific equipment onboard. Four of them will collect information related to different bands of radiation emitted by the sun, while the other three will measure other components like magnetic fields, and other parameters at the site.

Aditya L1 will be placed in an orbit about 1.5 million km from the Earth and it will move on a halo orbit around the Lagrangian Point 1 (L1). It will take about 126 days for the craft to cover the necessary distance from its current orbit. However, no clear date has been mentioned by the Indian Space Research Organisation regarding the exact date on which the craft will reach the final orbit.

Aditya L1 will study several key parameters of the sun. Some of these parameters include the study of the sun’s upper atmospheric (chromosphere and corona), chromospheric and coronal heating, physics of the partially ionized plasma, initiation of the coronal mass ejections, and flares, observation of the in-situ particle and plasma environment providing data for the study of particle dynamics from the sun, physics of the solar corona and its heating mechanism, development, dynamics and origin of CMEs, identification of sequences leading to eruptive events and drivers for space weather.

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