Ten days after India's success in landing the first ever spacecraft on the southern side of the moon, the country has launched 'Aditya L1', its first mission to study the sun. The spacecraft was launched on the polar satellite launch vehicle rocket, from Sriharikota on the eastern coast of India at 11.50am local time.
According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) the spacecraft will be placed in a Low Earth Orbit.
Subsequently, it will be launched towards the Lagrange point (L1) by using its onboard propulsion.
Aditya L1 will travel 1.5 million km for about four months and place itself in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point (L1) of the sun-Earth system. It will stabilise in the orbit because of balancing gravitational forces.
According to ISRO the Aditya-L1 mission is the first space-based observatory-class Indian solar mission to study the sun's atmosphere. The spacecraft is carrying seven payloads to observe and study the photosphere (deepest layers of the sun), chromosphere (layer about 400 km and 2,100 km above the photosphere) and the corona (the outermost layers of the sun).
Using electromagnetic and particle and magnetic field detectors, it aims to study solar winds, which can cause disturbance on Earth and are commonly seen as "auroras".
Long-term data from the mission could help better understand the sun's impact on Earth's climate patterns.
-FT