Aditya-L1 begins long journey to vantage point with successful TLI

BENGALURU: India’s first solar space observatory mission, Aditya-L1, early Tuesday began its 110-day-long journey to L1, about 1.5-million-km from Earth, with Isro completing the Trans-Lagrangian1 Insertion (TLI) flawlessly.The L1 refers to Lagrange Point-1 of the Sun-Earth system. It is a location in space where the gravitational forces of two celestial bodies, such as the Sun and Earth, are in equilibrium. This allows an object placed there to remain relatively stable with respect to both celestial bodies.“Off to Sun-Earth L1 point! TLI manoeuvre is performed successfully. The spacecraft is now on a trajectory that will take it to the Sun-Earth L1 point. It will be injected into an orbit around L1 through a manoeuvre after about 110 days. This is the fifth consecutive time ISRO has successfully transferred an object on a trajectory toward another celestial body or location in space.,” Isro said after the TLI was complete.On Monday, Isro said sensors of the he Supra Thermal & Energetic Particle Spectrometer instrument, which is a part of the Aditya Solar Wind Particle EXperiment (ASPEX) payload, have begun measuring supra-thermal and energetic ions and electrons at distances greater than 50,000km from Earth. This data helps scientists analyse the behaviour of particles surrounding Earth.Once the spacecraft reaches L1, another manoeuvre will bind Aditya-L1 to an orbit around L1, where it will spend its whole mission life, orbiting in an irregularly shaped orbit in a plane roughly perpendicular to the line joining the Earth and the Sun.After its launch on September 2, Aditya-L1 completed its four Earth-bound manoeuvres on September 3, 5, 10 and 15. The spacecraft is dedicated to the comprehensive study of the Sun and has seven distinct payloads.With Aditya-L1, Isro will venture into the study of solar activities and its effect on space weather. The scientific objectives of Aditya-L1 include the study of coronal heating, solar wind acceleration, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), dynamics of solar atmosphere and temperature anisotropy.