Aditya-L1 lifts off successfully! India’s maiden solar mission to study the Sun launched
India's first-ever space-based observatory-class solar mission lifted off on Saturday, September 2 at 11:50 AM IST from the launch pad 2 of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Aditya-L1 is India's second space venture this year after the success of Chandrayaan-3 which completed its lunar soft landing on August 23. Just a few days ago, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, along with the PSLV-C57 was rolled out onto the launch pad by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and launch rehearsals were carried out to ensure everything ran smoothly. Now, the spacecraft has taken off for the Sun, and it will travel approximately 1.5 million kilometers and be placed in the halo orbit.
Just a few minutes before the launch, the autonomous launch sequence began, following which, the spacecraft lifted off at 11:50 AM IST, embarking on its 1.5 million-kilometer journey to the Lagrange point (L1) of the Sun-Earth system. This vantage point is beneficial for the mission as it provides an unobstructed view of the Sun, unaffected by occultations or eclipses.
According to Dr. Anil Bharadwaj, director of the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad which developed the Aditya Solar wind Particle EXperiment (ASPEX) and Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA) payloads, "First of all, let me tell you that Aditya-L1 is multiwavelength, multi-instrument, and multidirectional. Multiwavelength because it works on X-rays, UV, and visible spectrum. Multi-instrumental because there are 7 instruments on board, and multidirectional because it not only looks at the Sun but also around it”.
After the first and second rocket stage's separation, the payload was also separated at 2 minutes 40 seconds. The third stage separated successfully at the
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