Aditya-L1 Mission: Spacecraft Successfully Completes Second Earth-Bound Maneuver

India’s Aditya-L1 spacecraft has successfully completed its second earth-bound maneuver, a significant milestone in the mission to study the Sun. The maneuver was carried out on September 6, 2023, from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s spaceport in Sriharikota.

Aditya-L1 Mission:
The second Earth-bound maneuvre (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.

The next… pic.twitter.com/GFdqlbNmWg

— ISRO (@isro) September 4, 2023

The Aditya-L1 spacecraft is equipped with seven payloads that will study the Sun’s outer atmosphere or corona. The spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, which is located about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth. This location will allow the spacecraft to continuously observe the Sun without being affected by eclipses or occultation.

The Aditya-L1 mission is expected to provide new insights into the physics of the solar corona, its heating mechanism, solar wind acceleration, solar atmosphere dynamics, solar wind distribution, temperature anisotropy, and the origins of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and solar flares. The mission will also help scientists to better understand the impact of solar activity on space weather.

The next maneuver for the Aditya-L1 spacecraft is scheduled for September 10, 2023. The spacecraft is expected to reach its final orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point in early 2024.