Aditya L1 Mission

Aditya L1 Mission

News: India's maiden solar mission, Aditya-L1 successfully launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota today.

Background:
• Aditya L-1 mission is being led by ISRO in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA)-Bengaluru, Inter-University
Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA)-Pune and Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata.

What is Aditya L1 mission?
• Aditya-L1 is a satellite dedicated to the comprehensive study of the Sun. It has seven distinct payloads — five by Isro and two by academic institutions in collaboration with Isro — developed indigenously.
• Aditya L-1 spacecraft shall be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system which is about 1.5 million km from the Earth.
• Aditya L-1’s placement in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/eclipses. This will provide a greater advantage of observing solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time.
• The major objectives of the mission include understanding the Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration, the initiation of Coronal Mass Ejection, and near-earth space weather and the solar wind distribution.

What is the significance of the mission?
• Understanding of the evolution of Earth due to Sun’s Impact
• It will help understand the changes of weather on earth owing to the Sun
• Every Solar storm that emerges from the Sun and heads towards Earth passes through Lagrange Point L1. As Aditya L-1 will be placed at Lagrange Point L1 of the Sun-Earth system it has the major advantage of continuously tracking these Earth Directed Solar Storms.
• It will help solve the mystery of ‘Coronal heating problem’
• Aditya L-1 can provide information about the variations in solar weather which will be helpful in the protection of satellites and International Space Station. Such variations usually damage onboard electronics, shorten the lives of satellites or even change their orbits.

What are different payloads onboard Aditya L1?
• Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) –It will help in Coronal imaging and spectroscopy.
• Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT)
• High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS) - Hard X-ray spectrometer for Sun-asa-star observation.
• Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS) - Soft X-ray spectrometer for Sun-as-a-star observation
• Aditya Solar Wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) - Solar wind/particle analyzer protons and heavier ions with directions
• Plasma Analyzer Package for Aditya (PAPA) - Solar wind/particle analyzer electrons and heavier ions with directions
• Advanced Tri-axial High Resolution Digital Magnetometers – Solar magnetic field study

What are other solar missions?
• Genesis – NASA  First spacecraft to capture a sample of the solar wind.
• SOHO – NASA and ESA
• TRACE – NASA
• Parker Solar Probe – NASA  It is closest to reach the sun. Especially designed for the study of the sun’s outer corona.