Aditya-L1 mission to study Sun likely to be launched next month: ISRO chief S Somanath

Aditya-L1 would be the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun.

Bengaluru: Hours after the Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief S Somanath on Wednesday announced that Aditya-L1 mission to study the Sun will be most probably launched in the first week of September.

Aditya-L1 would be the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun.

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Infroming about the launch of Aditya L1, a mission to study the Sun, the ISRO chief while addressing a press conference said that everything is going as per the plan and most probably it will be launched in the first week of September.

“Aditya L1’s mission to study the Sun will be launched soon. We’re planning to launch it in the first week of September. Everything is going as per the plan. This launch will go to an elliptical orbit and from that it will travel to the L1 point which will almost take 120 days,” S Somanath said.

Earlier on August 14, ISRO informed about mission Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun and said that it is getting ready for the launch.
“PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission: Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun, is getting ready for the launch. The satellite realised at the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Bengaluru has arrived at SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota,” ISRO said in a post on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter).

Meanwhile, India on Wednesday created history as the Chandrayaan-3 lander module successfully landed on the moon’s South Pole, making it the first country to have achieved the historic feat and bringing to an end the disappointment over the crash landing of the Chandrayaan-2, four years ago.

Officials at India’s space agency ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru broke into applause after the Vikram began its powered vertical descent towards its landing site.

This makes India the fourth country “after the US, China, and Russia” to have successfully landed on the moon’s surface, it has earned a place in record books as the first to touchdown on the south side of Earth’s only natural satellite.

The spacecraft was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota on July 14.

A GSLV Mark 3 (LVM 3) heavy-lift launch vehicle was used for the launch of the spacecraft that was placed in the lunar orbit on August 5 and since then it was through a series of orbital manoeuvres been lowered closer to the moon’s surface.