The Indian Space Research Organisation on Thursday shared stunning pictures captured by India's first solar mission Aditya-L1.
ISRO released a 'selfie' and images of the Earth and the Moon taken by the camera onboard the solar mission spacecraft.
"Aditya-L1, destined for the Sun-Earth L1 point, takes a selfie and images of the Earth and the Moon," the space agency said on X.
The images show VELC (Visible Emission Line Coronagraph) and SUIT (Solar Ultraviolet Imager) instruments as seen by the camera on-board Aditya-L1 on September 4, 2023.
ISRO Releases Images Taken By Aditya L1
Aditya-L1 Mission:
September 7, 2023
👀Onlooker!
Aditya-L1,
destined for the Sun-Earth L1 point,
takes a selfie and
images of the Earth and the Moon.#AdityaL1 pic.twitter.com/54KxrfYSwyAditya L1 Mission Update
Aditya L1, the first space based Indian mission to study the Sun underwent the second earth-bound manoeuvre successfully, during the early hours on Tuesday.
ISRO's Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) carried out the operation.
"The second Earth-bound manoeuvre (EBN#2) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. ISTRAC/ISRO's ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this operation. The new orbit attained is 282 km x 40225 km," ISRO said.
The next manoeuvre (EBN#3) is scheduled for September 10, 2023, around 02:30 Hrs. IST, it said.
Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space based observatory to study the Sun from a halo orbit around first sun-earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is located roughly 1.5 million km from earth.
The first earth-bound manoeuvre was successfully performed on September 3.
The spacecraft will undergo two more earth-bound orbital manoeuvres before placing in the transfer orbit towards the Lagrange point L1. Aditya-L1 is expected to arrive at the intended orbit at the L1 point after about 127 days.
ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57) on September 2 had successfully launched the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, from the Second Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota.
After a flight duration of 63 minutes and 20 seconds, Aditya-L1 spacecraft was successfully injected into an elliptical orbit of 235x19500 km around the earth.
According to ISRO, a satellite placed 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 the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time.
Aditya-L1 carries seven scientific payloads indigenously developed by ISRO and national research laboratories including the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru, and Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune.
The payloads are to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the outermost layers of the Sun (the corona) using electromagnetic and particle and magnetic field detectors.
(With PTI inputs)
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