BENGALURU, Sept 3: ISRO on Sunday said it has successfully performed the first earth-bound manoeuvre of the country’s maiden solar mission, Aditya L1, from ISTRAC here.
The space agency also said the satellite is healthy and operating nominally.
The next manoeuvre is scheduled for September 5, 2023, around 03:00 Hrs IST.
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“Aditya-L1 Mission: The satellite is healthy and operating nominally. The first Earth-bound maneuvre (EBN#1) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. The new orbit attained is 245km x 22459 km. The next maneuvre (EBN#2) is scheduled for September 5, 2023, around 03:00 Hrs. IST,” ISRO said in an update on ‘X’, formerly Twitter.
Aditya L1 was launched on Saturday from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
The mission aims to study the outer atmosphere of the sun by placing India’s first solar observatory at the Sun-Earth L1 point.
L1 stands for Lagrange point 1, where the spacecraft would be stationed.
The satellite started generating power after the solar panels were deployed.
According to ISRO, Aditya-L1 will stay approximately 1.5 million km away from Earth, directed towards the Sun, which is about one per cent of the earth-sun distance. It will neither land on the Sun nor approach the Sun any closer.
Meanwhile, Union minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday said Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1 are the outcomes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s progressive policy decisions, asserting that ISRO now has the capacity to compete with NASA and Roscosmos in space expeditions.
The lander module of Chandrayaan-3 — the third mission in the Chandrayaan programme developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) — touched down on the lunar surface on August 23, making India only the fourth country to accomplish the feat. It is also the first to reach the uncharted south pole of Earth’s only natural satellite.
The recently launched Aditya-L1 is a coronagraphy spacecraft to study the solar atmosphere.
Singh, the Union minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office, said, “Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1 spearhead India’s ‘Amrit Kaal’ growth journey over the next 25 years … this era has rightfully (been) called as ‘Modi’s Era’ and the world has hailed Modi for his progressive policy decisions. Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1 are its outcomes.” (PTI)
