India all set for Aditya-L1 mission: It's time for Isro to bask in the Sun

A spaceship stationed around L1 will have a clear vision of the sun without any occultation or eclipses. This will help in real-time monitoring

After the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission by soft-landing on the Moon, India is all set to launch its first space mission to study the Sun, called Aditya-L1, on Saturday by 11.50 am.  The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), started a 23-hour 40-minute countdown on Friday at 12:10 hours. Here is a look at the key highlights of the observatory-class solar mission.

$46 million: Amount sanctioned by the Centre in 2019; Actual cost is yet to be revealed

1.5 million kilometers: Distance to be covered, four times farther than the moon. However, this is only 1 per cent of the 151 million kilometer distance between the Earth and the Sun

PSLV XL rockets: Launch vehicle to be used for the mission which will place the spacecraft in the low Earth orbit.  Later, using onboard propulsion, the spacecraft will be launched towards Lagrange point (L1). This will be the 59th mission of PSLV.

Lagrange point (L1): Is a position in space between the Sun and the Earth, where the gravitational forces of the two bodies create an enhanced region of attraction and repulsion. These can be used by spacecraft to reduce fuel consumption needed to remain in position. Lagrange points are named in honor of Italian-French mathematician Josephy-Louis Lagrange.

Four Months: Expected time for India’s mission to reach L1 point

Parker Solar Probe: Nasa’s mission that reached 7.8 million kilometres from the Sun's surface in December 2021, the closest by a human spacecraft to the Sun so far.

Other than Nasa, European Space Agency through Solar Orbiter and countries like China, Germany, Japan and the UK reportedly had so far conducted missions to study the Sun.

SCIENCE OBJECTIVES OF ADITYA L1

Get a deeper understanding of the sun on;

1. Coronal heating and solar wind acceleration

2. Coupling and dynamics of the solar atmosphere

3. Solar wind distribution and temperature anisotropy

4. Initiation of Coronal Mass ejection (CME), flares and near-Earth space weather