Aditya-L1 is India’s first mission to study the Sun

Earlier in the week, NASA launched its Parker Solar probe in space, in order to study the Sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona. The $1.5 billion probe will be the closest man-made device to ever reach the Sun in the history of space exploration. Its mission is to mostly study and track solar winds emitted by Corona, which is an aura of plasma that surrounds the Sun. Now, India’s ambitious space agency ISRO ( Indian Space Research Organisation) is also getting ready to launch its very own probe to study the Sun called the Aditya-L1.

The satellite is being targeted to launch sometime between 2019 – 2020. Initially the mission was dubbed as the Aditya-1 and was only said to carry a payload of 400kg, which consisted of the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph. The satellite was planned to be launched in an 800 km low earth orbit. However, the agency then realized that a satellite placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system has an advantage of continuously observing the Sun without being affected by any occultation or eclipse.