India launched the first “Aditya-L1” sun observation mission today, Saturday, at 11:50 IST (06:20 GMT), just days after the country made history by becoming the first country to land near the south pole of the moon, as announced by the Indian Space Agency. It will travel a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, that is, 1% of the distance between Earth and the Sun, and it will take four months to travel this far.
Launching the first solar observation mission:-
On Saturday morning, a few thousand people gathered at the exhibition hall set up by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) near the launch site to watch the explosion.
It was also broadcast live on national television, with commentators describing it as a “fantastic” launch. ISRO scientists said the launch was successful and its “performance was normal.”
After an hour and four minutes of flight time, ISRO announced that the “mission was a success”:
Once Aditya-L1 reaches this ‘parking place’, it will be able to orbit the sun at the same rate as the Earth, which also means the satellite will require very little fuel to operate.
Once Aditya-L1 reaches its destination, it will benefit not only India but the global scientific community, said project director Nigar Shaji.
ISRO did not say how much the mission would cost, but reports in the Indian press put it at 3.78 billion rupees ($46 million; £36 million).
The mission will help improve our scientific understanding of the sun:-
Former ISRO scientist Mileswamy Annadurai believes that the mission will help, above all, to improve our scientific understanding of the sun and to understand solar activity, such as solar wind and solar flares, and their impact on Earth and near-space weather in real time.
India’s solar mission comes just days after the country successfully landed the world’s first probe near the moon’s south pole.
With this, India also became the fourth country in the world to achieve a soft landing on the moon, after the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China.
