Another feather in ISRO’s cap

Today on 06.01.2023 The ISRO completed the Halo-Orbit Insertion (HOI) of its solar observatory spacecraft, Aditya-L1.

The Aditya-L1 mission is an Indian solar observatory at Lagrangian point L1 for “Observing and understanding the chromospheric and coronal dynamics of the Sun” in a continuous manner

After the Chandrayan 3 success this is one of the significant achievement by the state space agency.

Aditya L1 is named after the L1 point which is actually the positions in space where the gravitational forces of two large bodies, such as a planet and a moon or a planet and the Sun, produce enhanced regions of attraction and repulsion. The L1 Lagrange point is a specific point in space where the gravitational forces of two large bodies balance the centripetal force felt by a smaller object, allowing it to effectively hover in a stable position relative to the larger bodies.

A “halo orbit” around the L1 Lagrange point is a type of three-dimensional orbit that involves complex dynamics, allowing a spacecraft or other celestial object to orbit around the L1 point in a periodic and stable manner.

Aditya-L1 was designed and realised at UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) with participation from various ISRO centres. The payloads onboard Aditya-L1 were developed by Indian scientific laboratories, IIA, IUCAA and ISRO. The Aditya-L1 spacecraft was launched by PLSV-C57 on September 2, 2023 from SDSC SHAR, into an elliptical parking orbit (EPO) of 235.6 km by 19502.7 km. From here, Aditya-L1 embarked on an extraordinary journey towards the Sun-Earth-L1 Lagrange point, with the help of the onboard propulsion system, increased its orbital size progressively and moved toward L1 point. Five liquid engine burns (LEB) were executed during Earth orbit phase; gradually raised the apogee of the EPO in order to attain the desired trajectory with the fifth burn, known as the trans-L1 injection (TL1I). Presently its placed at almost 1.5 million km from earth as mentioned on the ISRO official website.

All the payloads were tested during the pre-commissioning phase and performance of all the payload is confirmed to be satisfactory. The expected life time of the mission is 5 years.