India's next space mission

After the success of the Moon landing, India decided when to launch its next space mission - to study the Sun.

The Aditya-L1 solar research spacecraft is expected to launch into space in early September. Photo: VDOS/URSC

India's first solar-focused space observatory, Aditya-L1, is ready for launch from the country's main spaceport in Sriharikota, according to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). "We are planning to launch in the first week of September," S. Somanath, chairman of ISRO, told Reuters on August 26.

Named after the Hindi word for “Sun,” Aditya-L1 is tasked with studying the solar wind, which can impact Earth and often causes auroras. In the long term, data from the spacecraft could help scientists better understand how the Sun affects climate patterns on Earth. NASA and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter spacecraft also recently detected relatively small streams of charged particles that occasionally shoot out of the corona—the outer atmosphere of the Sun—which could shed light on the origins of the solar wind.

India’s heavy-lift rocket, PSLV, will launch the Aditya-L1 spacecraft into space. The spacecraft is expected to travel 1.5 million kilometers over about four months, orbiting around Lagrange point 1 (L1). Lagrange points are places where objects tend to remain stationary due to gravitational balance, helping spacecraft save fuel. Lagrange points are named after mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange.

In 2019, the Indian government approved the equivalent of about $46 million for Aditya-L1. ISRO has not yet given an official update on the cost. However, India is known for its cost-competitiveness in space engineering, and executives and planners hope this will boost India’s increasingly privatized space industry. The Chandrayaan-3 mission, which landed a spacecraft near the lunar south pole, cost just $75 million.

Thu Thao (According to Reuters )

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