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ISRO’s Aditya-L1 lifts off to study the sun

India’s first solar observatory mission — Aditya-L1 — was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on September 2.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), in its 59th flight with the Aditya-L1 onboard, took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 11.50 a.m.

About 63 minutes after take-off, the separation from the satellite took place with the PSLV launching the Aditya-L1 spacecraft in a highly eccentric orbit around the earth at 12.53 p.m. This was among the longest flights of ISRO’s workhorse launch vehicle in recent times.

Following the launch, Aditya-L1 will stay in orbit around the earth for 16 days, during which it will undergo five manoeuvres to gain the necessary velocity for its long journey towards the sun.

Subsequently, Aditya-L1 will undergo a Trans-Lagrangian1 insertion manoeuvre, marking the beginning of its 110-day trajectory to the destination around the L1 Lagrange point. Upon arrival at the L1 point, another manoeuvre binds Aditya-L1 to an orbit around L1, a balanced gravitational location between the earth and the sun.

The spacecraft will perform orbital manoeuvres by using its Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) engine to reach L1. Aditya-L1 will stay approximately 1.5 million km away from the earth, directed towards the sun, which is about 1% of the earth-sun distance.

Aditya-L1 has a mission life of five years during which its payloads are expected to provide the most crucial information to understand the problem of coronal heating; coronal mass ejection; pre-flare and flare activities and their characteristics; dynamics of space weather; and propagation of particles and fields.