Aditya L1 launch: The Indian Space Research Organisation chief S Somanath addressed from the Mission Control Center in Sriharikota after the successful launch of India's maiden solar mission, Aditya L1 today (September 2).
ISRO Chairman S Somanath said, "The Aditya L1 spacecraft has been injected in an elliptical orbit...which is intended very precisely by the PSLV. I want to congratulate the PSLV for such a different mission approach today to put Aditya L1 in the right orbit."
The PSLV C57 rocket carrying the Aditya-L1 orbiter, lifted off successfully from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh at 11.50 am today (September 2). The successful launch of the maiden solar mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) came on the heels of the historic lunar landing mission- Chandrayaan-3.
The ISRO successfully placed a lander on the unexplored lunar South Pole, a feat that put India in the record books as the first country to do so. According to the agency, the Aditya-L1 mission is expected to reach the observation point in four months.
It will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrangian Point 1 (or L1), which is 1.5 million km away from the Earth in the direction of the sun. It will carry seven different payloads to have a detailed study of the sun, four of which will observe the light from the sun and the other three will measure in-situ parameters of the plasma and magnetic fields. The largest and technically most challenging payload on Aditya-L1 is the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph or VELC.VELC was integrated, tested, and calibrated at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics’ CREST (Centre for Research and Education in Science Technology) campus in Hosakote in collaboration with ISRO.
ISRO chief on Chandrayaan 3:
Lunar mission Chandrayaan 3's rover and lander are functioning well and they would be put to "sleep" soon to withstand the night on the Moon, ISRO Chairman S Somanath said on Saturday.
The lander and rover, 'Vikram' and 'Pragyaan', respectively, were still functioning and "our team with scientific instruments are doing a lot of work now," he said."The good news is that the rover has moved almost 100 metres from the lander and we are going to start the process of making both of them sleep in the coming one or two days because they have to withstand the night," he said.
The ISRO chief was addressing from the Mission Control Center in Sriharikota after the launch of India's maiden solar mission, Aditya L1.
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