India’s inaugural space-based mission to study the Sun successfully completes its second Earth-bound maneuver

India’s maiden space mission, Aditya L1, which aims to study the Sun, has successfully completed its second Earth-bound maneuver, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The next maneuver, EBN#3, is scheduled for September 10, 2023, at around 02:30 hrs Indian Standard Time.

Aditya L1 represents India’s pioneering solar mission, designed to investigate the Sun from a halo orbit located around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), positioned approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

The first Earth-bound maneuver was effectively executed on September 3.

Prior to reaching its intended orbit at L1, Aditya L1 will undergo two additional earth-bound orbital maneuvers. This achievement is anticipated after approximately 127 days.

On September 2, ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57) carried out the successful launch of the Aditya L1 spacecraft from the Second Launch Pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota.

After a 63-minute and 20-second flight, Aditya L1 was successfully placed into an elliptical orbit measuring 235×19500 km around Earth.

Positioning a satellite in a halo orbit around L1 offers ISRO a substantial advantage—continuous, uninterrupted observations of the Sun without any eclipses. This capability will significantly enhance India’s capacity to monitor solar activities and their impact on space weather in real-time.

Aditya L1 is equipped with seven scientific payloads, all developed indigenously by ISRO and various national research laboratories, including the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in Bengaluru and the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune.

These payloads have been meticulously designed to investigate the photosphere, chromosphere, and the Sun’s outermost layers, known as the corona, using electromagnetic, particle, and magnetic field detectors.

Positioned at the advantageous L1 point, four of these payloads will directly observe the Sun, while the remaining three will conduct in-situ studies of particles and fields at Lagrange point L1. This will provide invaluable scientific insights into phenomena such as coronal heating, coronal mass ejections, pre-flare and flare activities, space weather dynamics, and the propagation of particles and fields in the interplanetary medium.