The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday said that the Aditya-L1 spacecraft has travelled beyond a distance of 9.2 lakh km from Earth, successfully escaping the sphere of Earth’s influence.
The national space agency headquartered in Bengaluru announced that it is currently charting a course toward the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (L1), as disclosed in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Aditya-L1 leaves sphere of Earth’s influence
In a statement, the agency highlighted that this marks the second consecutive occasion where ISRO has successfully dispatched a spacecraft beyond Earth’s sphere of influence, the first being the Mars Orbiter Mission.
Earlier this month, ISRO reported that the Aditya-L1 solar mission spacecraft has initiated the collection of vital data. This data will be instrumental in enabling scientists to scrutinize the behavior of particles enveloping Earth.
The data collected around L1 will provide valuable insights into the origin, acceleration, and anisotropy of solar wind and space weather phenomena.
About ISRO’s first solar mission – Aditya-L1
ISRO successfully launched the Aditya-L1 via the PSLV-C57 rocket on September 2nd.
The Aditya-L1 spacecraft is equipped with a total of seven distinct payloads designed to investigate the Sun. Among these, four payloads are dedicated to observing solar light, while the remaining three are focused on measuring in-situ parameters related to plasma and magnetic fields.
Aditya-L1 is slated to be positioned in a halo orbit around Lagrangian Point 1 (L1), which lies at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from Earth in the direction of the Sun. In this orbit, it will maintain a constant relative position with respect to the Sun, affording it continuous visibility of our star.