Aditya-L1 leaves ‘sphere of Earth’s influence’, navigating towards L1: Isro

NEW DELHI: Isro on Saturday evening announced that Aditya L1 spacecraft has “travelled beyond a distance of 9.2 lakh kilometres from the Earth, successfully escaping the sphere of Earth’s influence”.

Even as the Isro is keeping a close watch on the movement of Aditya L1 to its destination point ‘L1’, it is simultaneously making preparations in full gear for its Venus mission ‘Shukrayaan’, which could be launched in December next year.

Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space-based observatory to study the Sun from a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), located roughly 1.5 million km from the Earth, which is about 1% of the Earth-Sun distance.

“It (Aditya L1) is now navigating its path towards L1. This is the second time in succession that Isro could send a spacecraft outside the sphere of influence of the Earth, the first time being the Mars orbiter mission,” Isro wrote on X.

The strategic location of L1 will enable Aditya-L1 to continuously observe the Sun without being hindered by eclipses or occultation, allowing scientists to study solar activities and their impact on space weather in real-time. The spacecraft’s data will help identify the sequence of processes that lead to solar eruptive events.

Isro chief S Somanath, meanwhile, said the mission to Venus, the brightest planet in the solar system, has already been configured and its payloads (scientific instruments) are being developed.

The December 2024 window is being targeted for its launch with orbital manoeuvres planned for the following year when earth and Venus would be so aligned that the spacecraft could be put in the neighbouring planet’s orbit using a minimum amount of propellant. The next similar window will be available in 2031.

Addressing the Indian National Science Academy in Delhi recently, the Isro chief had said, “Venus is a very interesting planet. It also has an atmosphere. Its atmosphere is so thick... The atmospheric pressure is 100 times that of Earth and it is full of acids. You cannot penetrate the surface. You don’t know if its surface is hard or not. Why are we trying to understand all of this? Earth could one day be Venus. I don’t know. Maybe 10,000 years later we (Earth) will change our characteristics. Earth was never like this. It was not a habitable place long long back.”

Missions to Venus launched earlier include European Space Agency’s Venus Express (orbited from 2006 to 2016) and Japan’s Akatsuki Venus Climate Orbiter (orbiting since 2016). Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe has made multiple flybys of Venus.



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