- By Abhirupa Kundu
- Fri, 05 Jan 2024 11:31 AM (IST)
- Source:JND
India's first mission to the sun, the Aditya L1 satellite, is about to reach its destination and check in to its abode where it is likely to stay for the next five years. The "celestial surya namaskar" is scheduled to take place on January 6 at 4 pm, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said.
Aditya-L1's journey began on September 2, 2023, and it has traversed about 3.7 million kilometers as it went about a circuitous route to reach its "land of action", the space agency said.
According to ISRO, Aditya-L1 is in good condition and the scientific results of the maiden sun mission have already started flowing in as it has beamed back beautiful images of the full disc of the Sun.
Aditya-L1 Mission:
— ISRO (@isro) December 8, 2023
The SUIT payload captures full-disk images of the Sun in near ultraviolet wavelengths
The images include the first-ever full-disk representations of the Sun in wavelengths ranging from 200 to 400 nm.
They provide pioneering insights into the intricate details… pic.twitter.com/YBAYJ3YkUy
Aditya-L1 is destined to be stationed in a halo-shaped orbit, some 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth. Although closer to the Sun than the Earth, the orbit will still be far far away, since the Sun is some 150 kilometres away from the Earth.
"Aditya L1 is almost there now. Aditya L1 will reach Lagrange point on January 6 at 4 pm. We will have a very controlled burn of the engine of Aditya L1 so that it enters an orbit called the halo orbit," Somanath had said at Techfest 2023, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay's annual science and technology event.
Lagrange point is a region where gravity between earth and sun will neutralise. Absolute neutralisation is not possible because there are other bodies like the Moon, Mars, Venus, Somanath said.
All six payloads have been tested and "working beautifully", he said, adding all are giving very good data.
"After the insertion the satellite will be destined to look at the Sun forever as long as its electronics inside are healthy and ready to transmit data. We hope to find out a lot of correlation between the solar corona and mass ejection and impact on space weather we are facing everyday," Somanath added.
