Aditya L1: Timeline Of 926 Days Journey of ISRO's Sun Mission
Witness Aditya L1's launch, trajectory, and groundbreaking discoveries
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday successfully placed Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun, into its destination orbit Lagrange Point-1.
The Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system is about 1.5 million km from the Earth. It is about one per cent of the total distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Aditya L1's Launch
A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57) launched the Aditya-L1 spacecraft from the second launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, on September 2, 2023. After a flight duration of 63 minutes and 20 seconds, it was successfully injected into an elliptical orbit of 235x19500 km around the Earth then.
The spacecraft underwent a series of manoeuvres thereafter and headed Sun-Earth L1, having escaped the Earth's sphere of influence. The spacecraft carries seven payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the outermost layers of the Sun (the corona) using electromagnetic particle and magnetic field detectors.
Timeline of Aditya L1
Here's a timeline of Aditya L1:
September 2, 2023: ISRO launches Aditya-L1 onboard PSLV-C57.
September 3: First Earth-bound manoeuvre performed successfully, attaining an orbit of 245 km x 22459 km.
September 5: Second Earth-bound manoeuvre performed successfully. The new orbit attained was 282 km x 40225 km.
September 10: Third Earth-bound manoeuvre attains new orbit of 296 km x 71767 km.
September 15: Fourth Earth-bound manoeuvre to achieve new orbit 256 km x 121973 km performed successfully.
September 18: Aditya-L1 commenced the collection of scientific data.
September 25: An assessment of the space situation around Sun-Earth Lagrange Point L1
September 30: The spacecraft escaped the sphere of Earth's influence and goes on its way to the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1(L1).
October 8: Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre (TCM) was performed for about 16 seconds to correct the trajectory. TCM ensured the spacecraft was on its intended path towards the Halo orbit insertion around L1.
November 7: HEL1OS payload captured the first High-Energy X-ray glimpse of Solar Flares.
December 1: Solar wind Ion Spectrometer (SWIS) in the Aditya Solar Wind Particle Experiment(ASPEX) payload was made operational.
December 8: The SUIT payload captures full-disk images of the Sun in near ultraviolet wavelengths.
January 6, 2024: Aditya-L1 solar observatory is successfully inserted into Halo-Orbit around Sun-Earth L1.
