Aditya-L1 Mission to Study Sun Likely to be Launched in September: ISRO Chief

Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chief S Somanath announced that Aditya-L1 mission, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun will be likely launched by the first week of September.

This announcement comes hours after ISRO’s third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 made a successful landing on the lunar surface on Wednesday.

S Somanath, while addressing a press conference after Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing said, “Aditya L1's mission to study the Sun will be launched soon. We're planning to launch it in the first week of September. Everything is going as per the plan. This launch will go to an elliptical orbit and from that it will travel to the L1 point which will almost take 120 days.”

Aditya L1 would be the first space-based Indian mission to study the Sun. The spacecraft shall be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from the Earth. A satellite placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/eclipses. This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time.

Earlier, on July 14, ISRO, taking to Twitter informed that Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun was getting ready for the launch.

Also Read: Who Said What on Chandrayaan-3’s Successful Soft-Landing on Moon