According to ISRO, Aditya-L1, the first Indian observatory to study the Sun from space, will be launched soon. According to an update from the Bengaluru-headquartered national space agency, the satellite, which was developed at the U R Rao Satellite Centre here, has arrived at ISRO’s spaceport in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
Usually the first week of September,” an ISRO official told PTI.
Around 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth, the spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system.
ISRO noted that a satellite placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point can continuously observe the Sun and study without being occulated/eclipsed. “The solar activity and its effect on space weather will be observed in real time,” it said.
With electromagnetic and particle and magnetic field detectors, the spacecraft observes the photosphere, chromosphere, and outermost layers of the Sun (the corona).
The L1 vantage point will allow four payloads to observe the Sun directly while the remaining three will study particles and fields in situ at the L1. This will provide important scientific data about how solar dynamics propagate into the interplanetary medium.
According to ISRO, the Aditya L1 payload suits will provide crucial information on coronal heating, coronal mass ejection, pre-flare and flare activities, dynamics of space weather, particle propagation and field propagation, among other things,”
The Aditya-L1 mission’s primary scientific objectives are to analyse the dynamic nature of the solar upper atmosphere (chromosphere and corona), explore chromospheric and coronal heating, as well as their respective plasmas; gain insight into particle and plasma dynamics originating from the Sun; investigate the underlying mechanisms behind solar corona heating; measure parameters such as temperature, velocity, and density of plasma in coronal loops; understand what triggers coronal mass ejections; map out magnetic fields within the solar atmosphere; and lastly, determine what leads to space weather events.
As Aditya-L1’s instruments are tuned to observe the solar atmosphere, mainly the chromosphere and corona, the in-situ instruments will monitor the local environment.
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