Aditya-L1 mission (PSLV-C57)

Aditya-L1 mission (PSLV-C57)

✦ Aditya-L1 mission is India’s first solar observatory in space launched by ISRO on September 2, 2023.

✦ It is India’s first mission dedicated to studying the Sun, specifically the photosphere, chromosphere, and corona of Sun.

✦ Aditya-L1 spacecraft was inserted into a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1 (L1) on January 6, 2024.

✦ The L1 point is located between the sun-earth line, about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

✦ The spacecraft’s halo orbit allows it to continuously observe the Sun without any occultation or eclipse.

✦ A halo orbit is a result of the interaction between the gravitational pull of two planetary bodies and the centrifugal force on a spacecraft.

✦ Aditya-L1 has seven payloads in total, of which the primary payload is the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC).

✦ VELC is a solar coronagraph capable of simultaneous imaging, spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry.

✦ Aditya-L1 mission’s director is Nigar Shaji.