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

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Aditya L1 spacecraft, India's first spacebased mission to study the Sun, got a "sendoff" from the Earth after orbiting it since its September 2 launch as it underwent a key manoeuvre in the early hours of Tuesday, ISRO said.

The Trans-Lagrangian Point 1 Insertion manoeuvre marks the beginning of the spacecraft's about 110-day trajectory to the destination around the L1 Lagrange point, a balanced gravitational location 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 (formerly Twitter).

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 first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), located roughly 1.5 million km from earth, which is about one per cent of the Earth-Sun distance.

The Sun is a giant sphere of gas, and Aditya-L1 would study the outer atmosphere of the Sun. It will neither land on the Sun nor approach the Sun any closer.

Since its launch, AdityaL1, during its journey around the Earth, underwent four Earth-bound manoeuvres on September 3, 5 ,10 and 15 respectively, during which it gained the necessary velocity for its further journey to L1.

Upon arrival at the L1 point, another manoeuvre binds Aditya-L1 to 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 SDSC, Sriharikota.