The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday announced that it carried out Trajectory Correction Maneuvre (TCM) on October 6 on the Aditya L1 spacecraft. The Aditya L1 mission is India’s maiden solar mission.
The Indian space agency took to Twitter today to announce the Trajectory Correction Maneuvre. “A Trajectory Correction Maneuvre (TCM), originally provisioned, was performed on October 6, 2023, for about 16 s. It was needed to correct the trajectory evaluated after tracking the Trans-Lagrangean Point 1 Insertion (TL1I) maneuvre performed on September 19, 2023,” it said.
It also explained that a TCM is used to ensure that the spacecraft is on its intended path towards the Halo orbit insertion around L1.
“As Aditya-L1 continues to move ahead, the magnetometer will be turned on again within a few days,” the agency said further.
The Aditya L1 mission was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota on September 2.
Earlier on September 30, ISRO had announced that the Aditya L1 spacecraft had travelled beyond a distance of 9.2 lakh km from Earth, successfully escaping the sphere of Earth’s influence.
The spacecraft is travelling about 1.5 million km from the Earth over 125 days. It is expected to be placed in a Halo orbit around the Lagrangian point L1. The L1 point will allow the spacecraft to have an unobstructed view of the Sun. The spacecraft will also send pictures of the Sun for scientific experiments.