India's First journey towards Sun - Aditya L1
Aditya L1 Mission Launch Date 2023
On 2nd September 2023, India began its first ever mission to study the Sun.
Aditya L1 Full Form
Aditya is a name and L1 stands for Lagrange Point.
A Lagrange Point is a location in space between two gravitational bodies such as the earth and the sun where an object such as a spacecraft can be placed.
Surya Mission
Aditya L1 will take about 4 months from its launch date to reach L1 point, which is about 1.5 million km away from the earth and a total of about 1% distance between earth and the sun.
Aditya-L1 Mission Launch Vehicle
Its launch was completed by PSLV-C57 successfully.
Payloads
The spacecraft is sent with seven payloads to observe the sun from different points. All these payloads are developed indigenously.
These payloads will help to observe the photosphere, chromosphere, and the outer atmosphere of the Sun.
The 7 payloads are as :
1) VELC: Visible Emission Line Coronagraph
2) SUIT: Solar Ultra-violet Imaging Telescope
3) SoLEXS Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer
4) HEL1OS : High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer
5) ASPEX : Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment
6) PAPA: Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya
7) MAG: Magnetometer
Out of these, first 4 are Remote Sensing Payloads and the last 3 are In-situ Payloads.
The main objectives of this mission are to provide information about:
- Have a deep understanding of the sun.
- It will help to understand the space weather.
- To learn about coronal heating.
- To find out about solar winds.
- Dynamics of the solar atmosphere.
- Initiation of Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).
- It will have a continuous look at solar activities such as eclipses, solar radiation, magnetic storms etc.
