BackISRO: Aditya L1 successfully undergoes 4th earth-bound manoeuvre; send-off from Earth scheduled on THIS date
India's Aditya-L1 mission successfully performs fourth earth-bound manoeuvre, reaches new orbit of 256 km x 121973 km.
PremiumAditya L1 Mission: Aditya-L1, India's first solar mission, has successfully performed the fourth earth-bound manoeuvre, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on 15 September. As per ISRO, the new orbit attained is 256 km x 121973 km.
In a post on X, the space agecny wrote, “The fourth Earth-bound manoeuvre (EBN#4) is performed successfully. ISRO's ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru, SDSC-SHAR and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this operation, while a transportable terminal currently stationed in the Fiji islands for Aditya-L1 will support post-burn operations.".
The space agency said that the the next manoeuvre Trans-Lagragean Point 1 Insertion (TL1I), a send-off from the Earth is scheduled for September 19, around 02:00 Hrs. IST.
Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space-based observatory to study the Sun from a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is located roughly 1.5 million km from the Earth. Meanwhile, the first, second and third earth-bound manoeuvre was successfully performed on 3, 5 and 10 September respectively.
The manoeuvres are being performed during the spacecraft's 16-day journey around the Earth during which the spacecraft will gain the necessary velocity for its further journey to L1.
Whats next after the fourth manoeuvre?
With the completion of four earth-bound orbital manoeuvres, Aditya-L1 will next undergo a Trans-Lagrangian1 insertion manoeuvre, marking the beginning of its nearly 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 satellite spends its whole mission life orbiting around L1 in an irregularly shaped orbit in a plane roughly perpendicular to the line joining the Earth and the Sun.
ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57) on September 2 successfully launched the Aditya-L1 spacecraft from the Second Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota. After a flight duration of 63 minutes and 20 seconds that day, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft was successfully injected into an elliptical orbit of 235x19500 km around the Earth.
Aditya-L1 will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian Point 1 (or L1), which is 1.5 million km away from the Earth in the direction of the sun. It is expected to cover the distance in four months' time. It will stay approximately 1.5 million km away from Earth, directed towards the Sun, which is about 1 per cent of the Earth-Sun distance. The Sun is a giant sphere of gas and Aditya-L1 would study the outer atmosphere of the Sun.
Aditya-L1 carries seven scientific payloads indigenously developed by ISRO and national research laboratories, including the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in Bengaluru and the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune. The payloads are to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the outermost layers of the Sun (the corona) using electromagnetic particle and magnetic field detectors.
ISRO said Aditya-L1 will neither land on the sun nor approach the sun any closer.
This strategic location will enable Aditya-L1 to continuously observe the sun without being hindered by eclipses or occultation, allowing scientists to study solar activities and their impact on space weather in real-time. Also, the spacecraft's data will help identify the sequence of processes that lead to solar eruptive events and contribute to a deeper understanding of space weather drivers.
Major objectives of India’s solar mission include the study of the physics of solar corona and its heating mechanism, the solar wind acceleration, coupling and dynamics of the solar atmosphere, solar wind distribution and temperature anisotropy, and origin of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and flares and near-earth space weather.
(With inputs from PTI)
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