Top 10 updates on India's Solar mission Aditya-L1

 1) India's maiden solar mission--Aditya L1, on Saturday set off on a 125-day journey to the Sun in its attempt to study various elements relating to Earth's nearest star, after being put into orbit by a PSLV rocket that touched a new technical milestone in the launch vehicle segment.

2) Union Minister of State Dr Jitendra Singh congratulated the team of ISRO for the successful launch of ISRO. He called the launch to be a ‘sunshine moment for India.’

3) Four months from now, the spacecraft will be successfully placed on its Halo orbit, L1, near the Sun. Soon after that, its seven payloads will come into action to find out answers to some of the most intriguing questions about the Sun.

4) The primary objective of the mission is to increase India's ability to observe the Sun for 24 hours a day. The unhindered observation of the Sun will help in closely monitoring its activity. For its accomplishment, Aditya L1 is equipped with two major instruments, along with five smaller ones.

5) Observations made by Aditya L1 will also help in bridging the connection between the Sun's surface and the emission of high-energy particles during solar storms.

6) Following the launch, the spacecraft will be placed in a Low Earth Orbit. Subsequently, the orbit will be made more elliptical, and later the spacecraft will be launched towards the Lagrange point (L1) by using onboard propulsion.

7) As the spacecraft travels towards L1, it will exit the Earth’s gravitational Sphere of Influence (SOI). After exit from SOI, the cruise phase will start and subsequently, the spacecraft will be injected into a large halo orbit around L1.

8) L1 is 1.5 million km away from the Earth in the direction of the sun. It is expected to cover the distance in four months' time.

9) Upon reaching L1, Aditya-L1 will be manoeuvred into an irregularly shaped orbit, roughly perpendicular to the line joining the Earth and the Sun, where it will spend its mission life.

10) The mission aims to better understand the solar atmosphere, solar wind distribution, temperature anisotropy, and more. The spacecraft will stay approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, constantly facing the Sun, which is about 1% of the Earth-Sun distance.