BENGALURU: The Aditya L1 spacecraft, India’s first mission to study the Sun in space, successfully finished its third earth-bound manoeuvre early on Sunday. The space agency’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) managed the operation. “The third Earth-bound movement (EBN#3) is successfully conducted from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on social networking site X that the satellite was tracked during this operation by ISRO ground stations in Mauritius, Bengaluru, SDSC-SHAR, and Port Blair. It stated that the following manoeuvre is scheduled for September 15 at around 2:00 AM and that the new orbit obtained is 296 km by 71767 km.The first space-based observatory from India, called Aditya-L1, will observe the Sun from a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is around 1.5 million kilometres from the planet. On September 3 and 5, respectively, the first and second earth-bound manoeuvres were carried out successfully. Before entering the transfer orbit towards the Lagrange point L1, the spacecraft will perform one last earth-bound orbital manoeuvre. The movements must be carried out during the spacecraft’s 16-day orbit of the planet, which is when it will obtain the velocity required for its subsequent journey to L1. On September 2, Aditya-L1 was successfully launched by ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center’s Second Launch Pad in Sriharikota. The space agency had said shortly after the launch that the spacecraft would take around 127 days to reach its planned orbit at the L1 point. An advantage of a spacecraft positioned in a halo orbit around the L1 point, according to ISRO, is that it may see the Sun continually without being obscured by clouds or by eclipses. This will make it easier to track solar activity and how it affects space weather in real time. Seven scientific payloads, including those from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru and the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, were created by the ISRO and national research institutions for Aditya-L1.The payloads will use electromagnetic, particle, and magnetic field detectors to study the photosphere, chromosphere, and the Sun’s outermost layers, the corona. Four payloads will use the unique vantage point L1 to observe the Sun directly, while the remaining three will conduct in-situ particle and field studies at the Lagrange point L1, providing crucial information on the propagation of solar dynamics in the interplanetary medium. The most important data to comprehend the issue of coronal heating, coronal mass ejection, pre-flare and flare activities and their features, dynamics of space weather, and propagation of particles and fields is anticipated to be provided by the Aditya L1 payloads. Five Lagrangian points, or parking regions, where a tiny object tends to remain in place, are said to exist between the Earth and the Sun. Joseph-Louis Lagrange, an Italian-French mathematician, is honoured by having his work be named after him. Spacecraft can use these locations in space to stay there for longer periods of time while using less fuel. The gravitational attraction of the Sun and the Earth, which are at a Lagrange point, equals the centripetal force required for a small object to move with them.
