ISRO’s Next Mission: Aditya-L1 to Launch in September

ISRO to Launch its Next Mission with Aditya-L1 for Solar Mission

After successfully landing a spacecraft near the Moon's south pole, India's next cosmic mission is to reach the Sun. ISRO has announced that its first solar mission, Aditya-L1, which is ISRO's next mission would launch from the Sriharikota space facility on September 2 at 11:50 a.m.

According to ISRO, Aditya-L1 will explore the solar corona from a remote location at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L1, notably around 1.5 million km from Earth.

Lagrange Points are regions of equilibrium in space where the gravitational forces of two massive bodies, such as the Sun and the Earth, balance out, creating a region that can be used by a spacecraft to save fuel. They are named after Joseph-Louis Lagrange, a French mathematician who first studied them in the 18th century.

"A satellite in halo orbit around the L1 point has the significant advantage of continuously viewing the Sun with no occultation/eclipses." "This will give us a better opportunity to observe solar activities and their impact on space weather in real-time," adds ISRO.

The Aditya-L1 satellite, which would be India's first observatory in orbit for Sun research, will be launched using the PSLV-C57 rocket.

The Aditya-L1 mission, according to ISRO, is intended to investigate the interaction between the solar wind and the Sun's upper atmosphere (chromosphere and corona). The mission's goal is to learn more about the physics of the solar atmosphere's partly ionised plasma.

The spacecraft will investigate the mechanisms that warm up the solar corona and monitor the onset and development of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

It will examine the in-situ particle and plasma environment near the Sun and characterize the magnetic field of the solar corona.

In addition, the basic causes of space weather will be investigated and evaluated.