The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday (September 5) gave out its latest update on the Aditya-L1 mission, which is India’s first solar mission, and said that the Aditya-L1 spacecraft has successfully performed the second earth-bound manoeuvre. The national space agency also informed that the operation was performed from Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru.

“The second Earth-bound maneuvre (EBN#2) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. ISTRAC/ISRO’s ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this operation. The new orbit attained is 282 km x 40225 km. The next maneuvre (EBN#3) is scheduled for September 10, 2023, around 02:30 Hrs. IST, (sic)” ISRO posted on microblogging platform X (formerly known as Twitter). 

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Details of Aditya-L1 Mission

ISRO launched the country’s maiden solar mission — Aditya-L1 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota after the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 near the South pole of the moon. 

The Aditya-L1 spacecraft carried seven different payloads to have a detailed study of the sun. Out of these seven payloads, four will observe the light from the sun and the other three will measure in-situ parameters of the plasma and magnetic fields.

The national space agency informed that Aditya-L1 will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian Point 1 (or L1). Lagrangian Point is 1.5 million km away from the Earth in the direction of the sun and the spacecraft is likely to take four months’ time to cover this distance. 

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Aditya-L1 would study the outer atmosphere of the Sun which is a giant sphere of gas. ISRO also clarified that Aditya-L1 spacecraft will neither land on the sun nor approach the sun any closer. The strategic location, L1, will help the national space agency in observing and studying the sun without being hindered by eclipses or occultation. This mission will allow the scientists to study solar activities and their impact on space weather in real time.

It may be noted that the major objectives of India’s solar mission include the study of the physics of 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.