Aditya L1 Mission: ISRO completes first orbit manoeuvring exercise, second one to take place on Sept 5

A day after the launch of Aditya L1 to the Earth's orbit, ISRO successfully completed the first orbit manoeuvring exercise on Sunday.

“The satellite is healthy and operating nominally,” said ISRO after the satellite was upgraded to a higher orbit and with increased velocity.

“The first Earth-bound maneuvre (EBN#1) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. The new orbit attained is 245km x 22459 km. The next maneuvre (EBN#2) is scheduled for September 5, 2023, around 03:00 Hrs,” tweeted ISRO on X, formerly Twitter on Sunday.

After the completion of first orbit manoeuvring exercise, ISRO will perform the second such exercise on 5th September. A total of five such orbit manoeuvring will be performed during the satellite's revolution around the Earth.

The new orbit attained by the satellite is 245km x 22459 km. The next manoeuvre of the satellite is scheduled for September 5 at 3 am. With these earth-bound firing exercises, satellite will gain desired velocity before the beginning of its journey to the Sun.  The exercise, is also called as burn, and is more of a regular protocol during a spaceflight. That's why it was conducted during Chandrayaan-3 launch, as well as during previous launches by ISRO. During this exercise, the orbit of the satellite, or spacecraft, is increased by using the propulsion systems.

Notably, Aditya L1 satellite, will remain into Earth orbit for 16 days. During these sixteen days, all the five earth-bound firing exercises will be conducted for the satellite to gain recquired velocity.

After all the scheduled orbit raising exercises, Aditya L1 will start its journey to L1 point near the Sun. After reaching L1 point, the Indian satellite will undergo a trans-Lagrangian1 insertion manoeuvre, that will start its 110 day long trajectory to its destination.

For this to happen, Aditya L1 will undergo another manoeuvre to get injected into the halo orbit near L1. Lagrangian 1 point is the location where the gravitational force exerted by the Earth and the Sun cancel out each other. This will provide stability to the satellite.