Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) today successfully performed a key manoeuvre of its solar mission Aditya-L1. 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. 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).
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. The Sun is a giant sphere of gas, and Aditya-L1 will study the outer atmosphere of the Sun.
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 the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real-time.
