Aditya-L1 sun mission: First earth-bound manoeuvre successful

Aditya-L1 spacecraft which was lifted successfully to study the Sun made its first earth-bound manoeuvre on Sunday. ISRO in its latest update said the satellite is “healthy and operating nominally” and the next manoeuvre is scheduled for Tuesday at 0300 hrs IST. Shifting the focus to its next space odyssey after successfully placing a lander on the moon’s uncharted South Pole region, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched from Sriharikota on Saturday the country’s maiden solar mission — Aditya-L1. It carried seven different payloads to have a detailed study of the sun, four of which will observe the light from the sun and the other three will measure in-situ parameters of the plasma and magnetic fields. Aditya-L1 will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian Point 1 (or L1), which 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.