Within a span of ten days, ISRO has successfully launched its first solar mission, after the historic landing of Chandrayaan 3 on the lunar surface.
The mission, Aditya L1, was launched from Sriharikota’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre on a four-month journey to its final destination, Lagrange Point 1, at 11:50 in the morning today.
In the initial period, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) would position Aditya L1 into a lower Earth orbit. Later, the spacecraft will be placed into a halo orbit around Lagrange Point 1, which is about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from our planet.
The Aditya L1, which is named after the Sun, would complete its journey in four months and would observe solar activities for the next five years.
The main aim of this mission is to study the Sun and solar winds, along with understanding how its radiation, heat, particle flow and magnetic fields impact our home planet.
Here’s how people are reacting to the launch:
Interestingly, this is one of the longest missions of PSLV to date.