Aditya-L1 undergoes 2nd Earth-bound manoeuvre

 

 

ADITYA-L1, the first space based Indian mission to study the Sun underwent the second earth-bound manoeuvre successfully, during the early hours on Tuesday, ISRO said. ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) carried out the operation. “The second Earth-bound manoeuvre (EBN#2) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. ISTRAC/ISRO’s ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this operation. The new orbit attained is 282 km x 40225 km,” ISRO said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). The next manoeuvre (EBN#3) is scheduled for September 10, 2023, around 02:30 Hrs.

 

IST, it said. Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space based observatory to study the Sun from a halo orbit around first sun-earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is located roughly 1.5 million km from Earth. The first Earth-bound manoeuvre was successfully performed on September 3. The spacecraft will undergo two more Earth-bound orbital manoeuvres before placing in the transfer orbit towards the Lagrange point L1. Aditya-L1 is expected to arrive at the intended orbit at the L1 point after about 127 days. ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57) on September 2 had successfully launched the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, from the Second Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota.

 

After a flight duration of 63 minutes and 20 seconds, Aditya-L1 spacecraft was successfully injected into an elliptical orbit of 235x19500 km around 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. Aditya-L1 carries seven scientific payloads indigenously developed by ISRO and Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, and Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune.