Countdown For India's Big Solar Mission Aditya L1 Begins

After the huge success of India's moon mission, Chandrayaan-3, the country is now gearing up for another one but this time to the Sun. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to launch its first space-based solar mission Aditya L1 on September 2 at 11.50 am from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh.

ISRO Chief S Somanath said the countdown for the Aditya-L1 launch will start today. "We are just getting ready for the launch. The rocket and satellite are ready. We completed the rehearsal for the launch," he said.

ISRO on its official X account, previously known as Twitter, said that countdown leading to the launch has commenced.

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.

This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time.

The suits of Aditya L1 payloads are expected to provide 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 particle and fields etc.

On August 23, India became the first country to safely land a craft in the moon's south pole region. The mission is ongoing, with ISRO saying its rover had confirmed the presence of sulphur, iron, oxygen and other elements on the moon.