ISRO’s Aditya L1 Mission Performs Third Earth-Bound Maneuver Successfully
On Sunday, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced that Aditya L1, India’s inaugural solar mission, has effectively executed its third earth-bound manoeuvre.
“Third Earthbound Maneuver (EBN#3) successfully conducted from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. ISRO ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru, SDSC-SHAR and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this mission. The new orbit achieved is 296 km x 71,767 km,” ISRO said in X’s message.
Aditya-L1 Mission:
The third Earth-bound maneuvre (EBN#3) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru.ISRO's ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru, SDSC-SHAR and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this operation.
The new orbit attained is 296 km x 71767 km.… pic.twitter.com/r9a8xwQ4My
— ISRO (@isro) September 9, 2023
“The next flight (EBN#4) is scheduled for 09/15/2023 at around 02:00 IST,” it added.
Earlier on September 5, Aditya L1 successfully completed a second ground maneuver, achieving an orbit of 282 km x 40225 km.
After the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 at the moon’s south pole, ISRO launched the country’s first solar mission – Aditya-L1 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota on September 2.
It carried seven different payloads for a detailed study of the Sun, four of which monitor the light coming from the Sun and the other three measure in situ parameters of the plasma and magnetic fields.
Aditya-L1 will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian point 1 (or L1), which is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth in the direction of the sun. It is expected to make the trip in four months.
Aditya-L1 remains about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, facing the Sun, which is about 1 percent of the Earth-Sun distance. The Sun is a giant ball of gas, and Aditya-L1 would study the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
ISRO said that Aditya-L1 will not land on the sun and will not come any closer to the sun.
This strategic location allows Aditya-L1 to observe the Sun continuously, unhindered by eclipses or occultation, allowing scientists to study solar activity and their impact on space weather in real time. In addition, data from the spacecraft help identify the series of processes that lead to solar flare events and help understand space weather drivers.
The main objectives of the Indian solar mission are to study the physics of the solar corona and its heating mechanism, solar wind acceleration, solar atmosphere coupling and dynamics, solar wind distribution and temperature anisotropy, and the origin and flares of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and terrestrial space weather.
Aditya-L1 is a satellite dedicated to solar-wide research that will unravel the unknown facts about the sun. The satellite orbits the Earth for 16 days, during which it goes through five motions to reach the required speed to its destination.
Later, Adiya-L1 undergoes a trans-Lagrangian1 setup motion lasting 110 days. The satellite travels about 15 million kilometers to reach the L1 point. After reaching the L1 point, Aditya-L1 will bind Aditya-L1 into an orbit around L1, a gravitationally balanced locus between the Earth and the Sun, according to information shared on ISRO’s official website. (LETTER I)
