August 29, 2023
DHAKA – India’s first space-based observatory to study the sun will be launched on Saturday (September 2), the Indian Space Research Organization announced today.
The Aditya-L1 mission will be launched by ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle XL rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh at 11:50am, the ISRO said in its post on X, formerly Twitter.
Initially, the spacecraft will be placed in a low earth orbit and subsequently, the orbit will be made more elliptical. Later, the spacecraft will be launched towards the Lagrange point (L1), located at about 1.5 million km from the earth, from where it will study the sun, by using onboard propulsion, reports our New Delhi correspondent.
Aditya-L1 spacecraft is designed to provide remote observations of the solar corona and observations of the solar wind. It will be the first dedicated Indian space mission for observations of the Sun to be launched by the ISRO, the national space agency said.
Aditya L1, would carry seven payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the outermost layers of the Sun, the corona, in different wavebands.
The launch of the space-based observatory to study the sun will take place ten days after India successfully placed its lander module of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon on August 23, becoming the fourth country to do so after the US, Russia and China. India also became the first country to land the module on the south pole region of the lunar surface.