Aditya spacecraft begins new trajectory to Sun

September 19, 2023 08:32

Aditya L1 spacecraft, India's first space-based mission to study the Sun, got a "send-off" from the Earth after orbiting it since its September 2 launch as it underwent a key manoeuvre in the early hours of Tuesday, ISRO said.

The Trans-Lagrangian Point 1 Insertion manoeuvre marks the beginning of the spacecraft's about 110-day trajectory to the destination around the L1 Lagrange point, a balanced gravitational location between the Earth and the Sun.

"Off to Sun-Earth L1 point! The Trans-Lagrangian Point 1 Insertion (TL1I) manoeuvre is performed successfully. The spacecraft is now on a trajectory that will take it to the Sun-Earth L1 point. It will be injected into an orbit around L1 through a maneuver after about 110 days," ISRO said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

This is the fifth consecutive time the Indian Space Research Organisation has successfully transferred an object on a trajectory toward another celestial body or location in space, the country's space agency said.

Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space-based observatory to study the Sun from a halo orbit around first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), located roughly 1.5 million km from earth, which is about one per cent of the Earth-Sun distance.

The Sun is a giant sphere of gas, and Aditya-L1 would study the outer atmosphere of the Sun.

It will neither land on the Sun nor approach the Sun any closer. -- PTI

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