2023-09-02 12:25:55
Ten days following becoming the first country to land near the Moon’s south pole, India set off for the Sun. The mission Aditya-L1 took off this Saturday from the platform of the island of Sriharikota.
Aditya is one of the names of the god of the Sun in India and that is why his first mission to the great star of the Solar System is called that way. It will last something more than 4 months.
The ship will travel 1.5 million kilometers until reaching Lagrange point 1, an area located where the gravitational action between the Sun and the Earth cancels out. The location will allow it to stay in orbit, in an ideal position to observe the activities of the sun, with reduced fuel consumption.
The excitement for the launch
This Saturday, a few thousand people came to the viewpoint set up by the Indian Space Research Agency to witness the takeoff show. 64 minutes had passed since the launch when those responsible assured that it had been successful.
“Now he will continue on his journey. It is a long journey of 135 days. Let’s wish him the best of luck,” said the head of the agency, Sreedhara Panicker Somantah.
Aditya-L1 will orbit the Earth several times before being launched towards its observation point of the Sun. From that place it will be able to study it “constantly”
The authorities did not give many details regarding the cost of the mission, but the country’s media outlets estimated it at regarding 46 million dollars.
India made history with the Chandrayaan-3 mission: it landed for the first time on the south pole of the Moon
The ship carries seven scientific instruments. Four will point directly at the Sun and the rest will deal with particles. from the solar wind and magnetic fields.
The mission seeks to add information on the sun’s upper atmosphere and phenomena such as massive expulsions of plasma from the outermost layer.
The goal is to have a clearer picture of “space weather,” which describes the magnetic waves that propagate through the Solar System. Space storms can affect Earth when they reach the atmosphere and come to affect satellites and communications.
The Indian Aditya-L1 mission will add information collected in other missions launched to study the Sun, such as the Parker Solar Probe from NASA, which in 2021 became the first spacecraft to “touch” the star.
This is India’s first solar mission and reinforces the country’s presence as an emerging space superpower.
What was the first country to launch a solar mission?
Japan He started his career in 1981, with a mission to study solar flares. NASA and the European agency have been closely observing the Sun since the 1990s.
In February 2020, they launched a solar orbiter that is still active. And in 2021 the Americans made history with the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, the first to fly through the “corona”, as they call the outer atmosphere of the Sun.
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