After the success of the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing, India’s space agency has set a date for its next mission and this time to study the sun. The Aditya-L1, India’s first space observatory for solar research, is getting ready for launch at the country’s main spaceport in Sriharikota, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told reporters at its satellite command centre this week, as scientists and crew celebrate the moon mission’s success.
Chandrayaan-3's 'Pragyan' Rover Rolling Down to Lunar Surface From Lander | 2YoDoINDIA News Network
— 2YoDoINDIA News Network (@2yodoindia) August 25, 2023
For more news visit https://t.co/98KV4yIruC#2YoDoINDIA #ISRO #Chandrayaan3 #PragyanRover #IndianSpaceResearchOrganisation pic.twitter.com/ZnUERi05Jb
ISRO chairman S Somanath said :
“We are planning to launch in the first week of September,”.
Aims of Aditya-L1
Aditya-L1, named after the Hindi word for the sun, the spacecraft is India’s first space-based solar probe.
Aditya-L1 aims to study solar winds, which can cause disturbance on earth and are commonly seen as “Auroras“.
Longer term, data from the mission could help better understand the sun’s impact on earth’s climate patterns.
Researchers said the European Space Agency/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft had detect many relatively small jets of charge particles expell intermittently from the corona, the sun’s outer atmosphere, which could help shed light on the origins of solar wind.
How far will Aditya-L1 Travel?
India’s heavy-duty launch vehicle, the PSLV, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft will travel 1.5 million km in about four months to study the sun’s atmosphere.
It will head to a kind of parking lot in space where objects tend to stay put because of balancing gravitational forces, reducing fuel consumption for the spacecraft.
Those positions are call as Lagrange Points, name after Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange.
Cost of Aditya-L1 Mission
In 2019, the government sanction the equivalent of about $46 million (approx. Rs. 380 crore) for the Aditya-L1 mission.
ISRO has not given an official update on costs.
The Indian space agency has earn a reputation for world-beating cost competitiveness in space engineering that executives and planners expect will boost its now-privatise space industry.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission, which land a spacecraft on the lunar south pole, had a budget of about $75 million (approx. Rs. 620 crore).
