Sriharikota: Aditya-L1, the first observatory in India to study the Sun from space, is getting set to launch next month. The satellite, which was created at the U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, has reportedly landed at ISRO’s spaceport in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. The Lagrange point, or L1, which is 1.5 million miles from Earth and in the centre of the Sun-Earth system, is where the spacecraft is anticipated to be placed in a halo orbit. The ability to continuously observe the Sun without experiencing any eclipses is a key benefit of having a satellite in the halo orbit around the L1 point. This will make it easier to track the solar activity and how it affects the space weather in real time.
Seven payloads will be carried by the spacecraft to conduct electromagnetic and particle field detector observations of the photosphere, chromosphere, and outer solar coronal layers. Four payloads will use its unique vantage point to directly observe the Sun, while the other three payloads will conduct in-situ investigations of the fields and particles that surround it. This will allow for significant scientific studies of the propagation of solar dynamics in the interplanetary medium.