The Aditya-L1 mission has been successfully launched into orbit and is operating normally.
This first Indian solar observatory will be located at the L1 Lagrange point between the Sun and the Earth, providing continuous observation of the Sun without overlaps.
The Aditya-L1 mission will take about 109 Earth days after launch to reach a halo orbit around the L1 point, which is about 1,500,000 km (930,000 mi) from Earth. The spacecraft will remain in halo orbit for the duration of the mission while maintaining station maintenance costs of 0.2–4 m/s per year. The 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) satellite carries seven scientific payloads for various purposes.
The mission is aimed at understanding the processes in the solar corona, the dynamics of solar activity, and the effects on space weather, as well as the study of the magnetic field of the Sun and the solar wind.
In the Sun-Earth system, the L1 point is an ideal location for a space observatory to observe the Sun. This place is never blocked by either the Earth or the Moon.
The first spacecraft to operate near this point was the ISEE-3 launched in August 1978. The device entered a periodic halo orbit around this point on November 20, 1978, and was brought out of this orbit on June 10, 1982 (to perform new tasks).
Since May 1996, the SOHO spacecraft has b en operating in the same orbit. The ACE, WIND, and DSCOVR spacecraft are on quasi-periodic Lissajous orbits near the same point. In 2016-2017, the LISA Pathfinder apparatus also conducted experiments in the vicinity of this point.
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