Mission L1

ISRO's spacecraft succesfully launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota on Saturday. With this, India inched one step closer for the completion of its maiden Solar expedition. ISRO's trusted PSLV will carry the Aditya L1 mission on a 125-day voyage to the Sun.

The Aditya L1 spacecraft will stay in Earth's orbit for sixteen days. After four months of journey, the satellite will be placed on the L1 point in the halo orbit around the Sun.

The launch took place at 11:50 am from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota today. The 23.10 hour countdown for the launch of Aditya L1 onboard PSLV C57 commenced on Friday, ISRO said.

Aditya L1 is designed to provide remote observations of the Solar corona and conduct in-situ observations of the Solar wind at L1 (Sun-Earth Lagrangian point), which is about 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth.

Click here to watch Aditya L1 mission launch

Aditya L1 Launch LIVE Updates: Don’t fly too close to the Sun, says Anand Mahindra

Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra on Saturday took to microblogging site X (formerly Twitter) to say that while ‘Don’t fly too close to the Sun’ was used to define ‘over ambition’ of Greek god Icarus, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) can successfully change the meaning with the launch of Aditya L1.

Following the launch, the spacecraft will be placed in a Low Earth Orbit. Subsequently, the orbit will be made more elliptical, and later the

spacecraft will be launched towards the Lagrange point (L1) by using onboard propulsion, ISRO said in an official statement. As the spacecraft travels towards L1, it will exit the Earth’s gravitational Sphere of Influence (SOI). After exit from SOI, the cruise phase will start and subsequently, the spacecraft will be injected into a large halo orbit around L1, it added.

Also Read: LIVE Updates on Aditya-L1 mission launch

Upon reaching L1, Aditya-L1 will be manoeuvred into an irregularly shaped orbit, roughly perpendicular to the line joining the Earth and the Sun, where it will spend its mission life.

The mission aims to better understand the solar atmosphere, solar wind distribution, temperature anisotropy, and more. The spacecraft will stay approximately 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, constantly facing the Sun, which is about 1% of the Earth-Sun distance.

Aditya-L1 is a fully indigenous effort with the involvement of national institutions, including the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune.

The mission will utilise a PSLV-C57 rocket for its launch. Aditya-L1 carries seven specialised payloads designed to observe different aspects of the Sun, including the photosphere, chromosphere, and corona, across various wavelengths.

The mission's instruments are finely tuned to observe the Sun's atmosphere, while in-situ instruments will capture data from the local environment at L1 point.

SRO chief shares update on India's upcoming missions, says ‘After Aditya L1, our next launch is

Aditya L1 Launch Today: India's maiden solar mission Aditya-L1 is all set to be launched today i.e. 2 Spetember at 11:50 am from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR) launch pad at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. With the launch rehearsal and vehicle internal checks all being completed, ISRO is now set to launch India's first solar space observatory Aditya-L1 by the PSLV-C57. It will carry seven different payloads to have a detailed study of the sun, four of which will observe the light from the sun and the other three will measure in-situ parameters of the plasma and magnetic fields. ISRO's trusted PSLV will carry the Aditya L1 mission on a 125-day voyage to the Sun.

ISRO director S Somanath said: "The countdown for Aditya L1 has started today and will begin around 11:50 am tomorrow. The Aditya L1 satellite will conduct research today. It will take another 125 days to reach L1 point. This is a very important time. We have not decided on the launch yet. (Chandrayaan-4), we will announce soon. After Aditya L1, our next release is Gaganyaan, which will be released in the first week of October. "