ISRO announce that India’s first solar mission Aditya-L1 to study the Sun will be launch on 2nd September 2023 at 11.50 am from Sriharikota spaceport after the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission to the Moon.
Aditya-L1 spacecraft is design to provide remote observations of the solar corona and in-situ observations of the solar wind at L1 (Sun-Earth Lagrange point), which is about 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth.
Lagrange Points are positions in space where the gravitational forces of the Sun and the Earth produce enhance regions of attraction and repulsion.
Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan Rover Confirms Presence of Sulphur on Moon, Search for Hydrogen Underway: ISRO
— 2YoDoINDIA News Network (@2yodoindia) August 30, 2023
for more news visit https://t.co/98KV4yIruC#2YoDoINDIA #ISRO #Chandrayaan3 #PragyaanRover #Pragyan #Sulphur #LunarSurface pic.twitter.com/YG6ybeOtan
These can be use by spacecraft to reduce fuel consumption need to remain in position, as per NASA.
Lagrange points are call in honor of Italian-French mathematician Josephy-Louis Lagrange.
The Bengaluru-headquarter space agency said in a social media post that the spacecraft, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun would be launch using a PSLV-C57 rocket.
The Aditya-L1 mission, aim at studying the Sun from an orbit around the L1, would carry 7 payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the corona, the outermost layers of the Sun in different wavebands.
Aditya-L1 is a fully indigenous effort with the participation of national institutions, as per ISRO official.
The Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) is the lead institute for the development of Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) payload and Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, has develop the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) payload for the mission.
As per ISRO, VELC aims to collect the data for solving how the temperature of the corona can reach about a million degrees while the Sun’s surface itself stays just over 6000 degrees Centigrade.
Aditya-L1 can provide observations on the corona, and on the solar chromosphere using the UV payload and on the flares using the X-ray payloads.
The particle detectors and the magnetometer payload can provide information on charge particles and the magnetic field reaching the halo orbit around L1.
The satellite, develop by U R Rao Satellite Centre here, arrive at ISRO’s spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, earlier this month.
It is plan to be place in a halo orbit around the L1 point of the Sun-Earth system.
A satellite place in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any planets obstructing the view or causing eclipses, ISRO noted.
India's Mangalyaan captured Martian moon Phobos passing over Red Planet
— 2YoDoINDIA News Network (@2yodoindia) August 28, 2023
for more news visit https://t.co/98KV4yIruC#2YoDoINDIA #Mangalyaan #RedPlanet #IndiaMarsOrbiterMission #Mars #EuropeanSpaceAgency pic.twitter.com/8ix4k1JA9f
ISRO Said :
“This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time,”.
Using the special vantage point L1, four payloads would directly view the Sun and the remaining three payloads are expect to carry out in-situ studies of particles and fields at the L1 point, thus providing important scientific studies of the propagatory effect of solar dynamics in the interplanetary medium.
ISRO said :
“The SUITs of Aditya L1 payloads are expect to provide the most crucial information to understand the problem of coronal heating, coronal mass ejection (CME), pre-flare and flare activities and their characteristics, dynamics of space weather, propagation of particle and fields etc,”.
Objectives of the Aditya-L1 Mission
- Study of solar upper atmospheric (chromosphere and corona) dynamics
- Study of chromospheric and coronal heating, physics of the partially ionised plasma
- Initiation of the coronal mass ejections, and flares
- Observe the in-situ particle and plasma environment providing data for the study of particle dynamics from the Sun
- Physics of solar corona and its heating mechanism.
- Study diagnostics of the coronal and coronal loops plasma – temperature, velocity and density.
- Development, dynamics and origin of CMEs.
- Identify the sequence of processes that occur at multiple layers (chromosphere, base and extended corona) which eventually leads to solar eruptive events.
- Magnetic field topology and magnetic field measurements in the solar corona.
- Drivers for space weather (origin, composition and dynamics of solar wind).
The instruments of Aditya-L1 are tune to observe the solar atmosphere, mainly the chromosphere and corona.
In-situ instruments will observe the local environment at the L1 point.
