New Delhi: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) reported that the Aditya L1 spacecraft has travelled beyond a distance of 9.2 lakh kilometres from Earth. It has successfully exited the sphere of Earth’s influence and is now on course towards the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (L1).
ISRO took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to announce the update on Aditya L1 spacecraft, stating, “The spacecraft has travelled beyond a distance of 9.2 lakh kilometres from Earth, successfully escaping the sphere of Earth’s influence. It is now navigating its path towards the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (L1).”
“This is the second time in succession that ISRO could send a spacecraft outside the sphere of influence of the Earth, the first time being the Mars Orbiter Mission,” ISRO added.
Aditya-L1 Mission:
🔸The spacecraft has travelled beyond a distance of 9.2 lakh kilometres from Earth, successfully escaping the sphere of Earth's influence. It is now navigating its path towards the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (L1).
🔸This is the second time in succession that…
— ISRO (@isro) September 30, 2023
The Aditya-L1 orbiter lifted off successfully from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, on September 2.
Aditya L1 will be the first space-based Indian mission to study the sun. The spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from the Earth.
The spacecraft holds seven payloads for studying the sun’s photosphere, chromosphere, and the outermost layers of the sun (the corona). These tools include detectors for electromagnetic and particle observation, as well as magnetic field measurements.
The payloads include, Visible Emission Line Coronagraph(VELC), Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT), Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS), High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer(HEL1OS), Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment(ASPEX), Plasma Analyser Package For Aditya (PAPA), and Advanced Tri-axial High Resolution Digital Magnetometers.