Aditya L1, the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) maiden solar mission, successfully enetered its final manoeuvre to reach its destination and injected into its final orbit today.
ISRO chief S Somanath told that “Aditya-L1 is going to reach its L1 point on January 6 at 4pm and we are going to do the final manoeuvre to keep it there.”
Upon reaching its final destination, the spacecraft will be able to view the sun without any eclipses.
Launched on September 2 last year, the spacecraft has undergone four earth-bound manoeuvres and a Trans-Lagrangean Point 1 Insertion (TL1I) manoeuvres, all successfully.
The mission aims to observe the Sun’s corona and understand its extreme heat from a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is located roughly 1.5 million km from the Earth.
The Lagrange Point is a unique region where gravitational forces between the Earth and the Sun reach equilibrium. While absolute neutralization is not achievable due to the influence of other celestial bodies such as the Moon, Mars, and Venus, the L1 point provides a stable position for observational purposes.