Aditya-L1: India may be the fourth to take a trip to L1 Halo orbit

Somewhat earlier than midday on Saturday, India will launch its first space-based photo voltaic observatory mission, Aditya L-1, from its premier satellite tv for pc launch centre Sriharikota, off the coast of Andhra Pradesh. If profitable, India will turn out to be the fourth nation to put a spacecraft in an orbit across the Sun-Earth Lagrangian level, termed L1, after the US, Europe and China, prime photo voltaic scientists stated.

Earlier, USA’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) joint mission Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and China’s Chang’e-5 prolonged mission have reached L1.

The largest of the seven payloads on Aditya L-1 is the VELC, or Visible Emission Line Coronagraph. It is designed for imaging and spectroscopy to unravel the secrets and techniques of the photo voltaic corona, the outermost layer of the Sun. It is without doubt one of the most troublesome elements of the star to be studied, in keeping with one of many scientists cited above who declined to be named.

“There are a lot of gaps in understanding coronal mass ejections’ (CMEs’) physics in the inner solar corona. So, I think with the VELC instrument, we will be able to study and understand the acceleration mechanism of CMEs,” he stated.

Aditya’s estimated journey time from launch date to its designated orbit is 4 months, in keeping with the scientists who stated the mission’s goal is to not be an area weather-alert instrument.

NASA-ESA’s Mission SOHO was designed for a nominal three years however continued to function and supply useful knowledge for greater than 20 years. Similarly, Aditya, which is designed for a nominal five-year mission life, is anticipated to have an prolonged tenure, they added.

AN Ramaprakash, astronomer and dean, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, stated one of many seven payloads aboard Aditya L-1 is the photo voltaic ultraviolet imaging telescope (SUIT). Speaking to ET, Ramaprakash who can be a principal investigator for SUIT, stated “we will observe the Sun in multiple colours using a set of carefully selected filters.”

Data for Space-weather Research

“The temperature changes in the Sun’s atmosphere, and these wavelengths and colours have been chosen carefully such that each filter will take emission coming from one particular height in the atmosphere,” stated Ramaprakash.

Subsequently, many pictures, every in a special color or totally different filter, will likely be put collectively to see what’s going on at totally different layers of the ambiance. “You can create a 3D tomographic view of the dynamics of the solar atmosphere,” he stated.

This specific selection of wavelengths of colors or filters have by no means been studied earlier than, not even by SOHO. “This is a comprehensive package and a single payload doing everything, near simultaneously taking images one after another, in different colours, and putting it all together, to get the full story. That is being done for the first time,” Ramaprakash stated.

Typically, telemetry knowledge from Aditya will attain instantly as the bottom station turns into seen and can transmit knowledge about its well being parameters inside just a few seconds.

“But the actual science data that is recorded by instruments aboard will be downloaded anywhere between 12 and 24 hours,” he added.

Aditya is principally centered on analysis on photo voltaic and Helio physics and can present a whole lot of knowledge for space-weather analysis which is able to advance future forecasting functionality.

Advance warnings

Aditya might not be capable to present advance warning for photo voltaic storms as electromagnetic radiation — which passes by way of L1 — can attain Earth in just some seconds. However, the particles coming from the Sun don’t journey on the pace of sunshine however at a a lot slower pace.

“So being at L1, if we see enhanced particles and also magnetic configuration of these particles, then we may get advance warning. The time it takes for the particles to come from L1 can vary from one or two hours to 11 hours,” stated one scientist conscious of the matter.

R Ramesh, Professor, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, who’s the principal investigator of VELC, stated a photo voltaic eclipse can on the most occur solely two or 3 times a yr and the totality section can solely be for six or seven minutes.

“But there are reasons we need to study the solar corona 24/7. There are violent disturbances in the solar corona and coronal mass ejections are phenomena when coronal material is thrown into interplanetary space. They can travel at the speed of 3,000 km per second, and there is a good chance of this material being directed towards the earth. This can also impact satellites whose functioning is crucial for GPS, mobile communications etc,” he added.