India is all set to launch its first solar mission, Aditya-L1, on Saturday. The mission is scheduled to take off from the Sriharikota launch pad at 11:50 AM IST.
Aditya-L1 is a solar space observatory that will carry seven different payloads to study the sun in detail. The largest and most technically challenging payload is the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), which will image the sun’s corona, or atmosphere.
The spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian Point 1 (L1), which is 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth in the direction of the sun. This location will allow Aditya-L1 to continuously observe the sun without being hindered by eclipses or occultation.
The mission’s major objectives include studying the physics of the solar corona and its heating mechanism, the solar wind acceleration, coupling and dynamics of the solar atmosphere, solar wind distribution and temperature anisotropy, and origin of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and flares and near-earth space weather.
The data collected by Aditya-L1 will help scientists to better understand the sun and its impact on Earth’s space environment.
The launch of Aditya-L1 comes just weeks after India’s successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 lander module on the moon’s South Pole. The Chandrayaan-3 mission was India’s third lunar mission and the first to successfully land on the moon’s South Pole.
The lander and rover on board Chandrayaan-3 performed different set tasks on the lunar surface, including finding the presence of sulphur and recording relative temperature. The mission was a major success for India and a significant step forward in its space exploration program.
Aditya-L1 and Chandrayaan-3 are two of the most important space missions undertaken by India in recent years. The success of these missions will help India to further its space exploration goals and make significant contributions to the field of solar and lunar science.
