Following the success of the Chandrayaan-3, India's state-run space agency, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is all set to launch its upcoming mission Aditya-L1 to study the Sun in the upcoming days.
Aditya-L1 is yet another major mission to be launched by ISRO after it successfully landed a spacecraft near the south pole of the Moon last week.
The Sun mission will be launched on September 2, ISRO announced recently.
The launch will take place at 11.50 am from the Sriharikota Space Centre.
The Aditya-L1 shall be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from the Earth.
"A satellite placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/eclipses," as per ISRO website giving details about the mission.
This will provide a greater advantage in observing solar activities and their effect on space weather in real-time.
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.
Using the special vantage point L1, four payloads will directly view the Sun and the remaining three payloads will carry out in-situ studies of particles and fields at the Lagrange point L1, thus providing important scientific studies of the propagatory effect of solar dynamics in the interplanetary medium
The suits of Aditya-L1 payloads are expected to provide the most crucial information to understand the problem of coronal heating, coronal mass ejection, pre-flare and flare activities and their characteristics, dynamics of space weather, propagation of particles and fields, among others.
The major science objectives of Aditya-L1 mission are:
Study of Solar upper atmospheric (chromosphere and corona) dynamics.
Study of chromospheric and coronal heating, physics of the partially ionised plasma, initiation of the coronal mass ejections, and flares.
Observe the in-situ particle and plasma environment, providing data for the study of particle dynamics from the Sun.
Physics of solar corona and its heating mechanism.
Diagnostics of the coronal and coronal loops plasma: Temperature, velocity and density.
Development, dynamics and origin of CMEs.
Identify the sequence of processes that occur at multiple layers (chromosphere, base and extended corona) which eventually leads to solar eruptive events.
Magnetic field topology and magnetic field measurements in the solar corona.
Drivers for space weather (origin, composition and dynamics of solar wind).