India's solar mission spacecraft Aditya-L1 gets send off from Earth as ISRO performs key manoeuvre

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The Aditya L1 spacecraft, India’s first space-based mission to study the Sun, received a “send-off” from Earth after orbiting it since its September 2 launch when it performed a critical manoeuvre in the early hours of Tuesday, according to ISRO.

The Trans-Lagrangian Point 1 Insertion manoeuvre marks the start of the spacecraft’s 110-day journey to the L1 Lagrange point, a balanced gravitational region between the Earth and the Sun.

“Off to Sun-Earth L1 point! The Trans-Lagrangian Point 1 Insertion (TL1I)  manoeuvre is performed successfully. The spacecraft is now on a trajectory that will take it to the Sun-Earth L1 point. It will be injected into an orbit around L1 through a maneuver after about 110 days,” ISRO said in a post on X.

This is the fifth consecutive time the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully transferred an object on a trajectory toward another celestial body or location in space, the country's space agency said.

Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space-based observatory to study the Sun from a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth and represents around 1% of the Earth-Sun distance.

Aditya-L1 would explore the Sun's outer atmosphere, which is a massive disc of gas. It will not fall on the Sun or go any closer to it.

Since its launch, Aditya-L1 has performed four Earth-bound manoeuvres on September 3, 5, 10, and 15, consecutively, gaining the necessary velocity for its subsequent voyage to L1.

When Aditya-L1 arrives at the L1 point, another movement locks Aditya-L1 into an orbit around L1.

The satellite spends its whole mission life orbiting around L1 in an irregularly shaped orbit in a plane roughly perpendicular to the line joining the Earth and the Sun.

Aditya-L1 is expected to arrive at the intended orbit at the L1 point after about 127 days, ISRO had said soon after the launch.

ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57) on September 2 successfully launched the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, from the Second Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota.

After a flight duration of 63 minutes and 20 seconds that day, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft was successfully injected into an elliptical orbit of 235x19500 km around the Earth.

According to ISRO, a spacecraft placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation /eclipses. This will provide a greater advantage of observing solar activities and their effect on space weather in real-time.

Aditya-L1 carries seven scientific payloads indigenously developed by ISRO and national research laboratories including the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, and Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune.

The payloads are to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the outermost layers of the Sun (the corona) using electromagnetic particle and magnetic field detectors.

Using the special vantage point L1, four payloads directly view the Sun and the remaining three payloads carry out in-situ studies of particles and fields at the Lagrange point L1, thus providing important scientific studies of the propagatory effect of solar dynamics in the interplanetary medium.

The suits of Aditya L1 payloads are expected to provide the most crucial information to understand the problem of coronal heating, coronal mass ejection, pre-flare and flare activities and their characteristics, dynamics of space weather, and propagation of particles and fields.

According to scientists, there are five Lagrangian points (or parking areas) between the Earth and the Sun where a small object tends to stay if put there. The Lagrange Points are named after Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange for his prize-winning paper "Essai sur le Problème des Trois Corps, 1772."

These points in space can be used by spacecraft to remain there with reduced fuel consumption.

At a Lagrange point, the gravitational pull of the two large bodies (the sun and the earth) equals the necessary centripetal force required for a small object to move with them.



from Firstpost India Latest News https://ift.tt/e4O1DMo
FP Staff

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