In the early hours of Sunday, the Aditya L1 spacecraft, India’s pioneering mission designed to explore the Sun, celebrated a significant milestone by completing its third earth-bound manoeuvre, as reported by ISRO.
This crucial operation was executed by ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network (ISTRAC). According to ISRO’s official statement, “The third Earth-bound manoeuvre (EBN#3) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. ISRO’s ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru, SDSC-SHAR, and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this operation.”
As a result of this successful manoeuvre, the Aditya L1 spacecraft now follows a new orbit with dimensions measuring 296 km x 71767 km. ISRO also revealed that the next manoeuvre is scheduled for September 15, around 2 am.
Aditya-L1 represents India’s inaugural space-based observatory, poised to examine the Sun from a unique vantage point – a halo orbit situated around the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L1, approximately 1.5 million km from Earth.
Prior to this achievement, the spacecraft had already executed its first and second earth-bound manoeuvres on September 3 and 5, respectively. It is slated to undergo one more earth-bound orbital manoeuvre before being transitioned into the transfer orbit en route to Lagrange point L1.
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