The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said today that it had successfully performed the first earth-bound manoeuvre of the country’s maiden solar mission, Aditya-L1, from the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bengaluru.
“Aditya-L1 Mission: The satellite is healthy and operating nominally. The first Earth-bound manoeuvre (EBN#1) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. The new orbit attained is 245km x 22459 km. The next manoeuvre (EBN#2) is scheduled for September 5, 2023, around 03:00 Hrs. IST,” said ISRO in an update on the social network X, formerly Twitter.
Aditya-L1 was launched yesterday from the Sriharikota launch pad, in Andhra Pradesh. The mission aims to study the outer atmosphere of the sun by placing India’s first solar observatory at the Sun-Earth L1 point. L1 stands for “Lagrange point 1”, where the spacecraft would be stationed.
The satellite started generating power after the solar panels were deployed.
According to ISRO, Aditya-L1 will stay approximately 1.5 million km away from Earth, directed towards the sun, which is about 1 per cent of the earth-sun distance. It will not get any closer to the sun, as the heat would be too intense.