India’s “celestial surya namaskar” is about to reach its climax. India’s first space-based solar observatory — the Aditya-L1 satellite — is going to check-in to the home it is likely to occupy for the next five years.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) says the satellite will reach its destination orbit on January 6 at 4 pm.
In its 126-day journey that began on September 2 last year, it has traversed about 3.7 million kilometers as it went about a circuitous route to reach its “karambhoomi” or “land of action”. ISRO says Aditya is healthy and scientific results have already started flowing in as it has beamed back beautiful images of the full disc of the Sun.
Aditya’s home is in a halo-shaped orbit, some 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth. Although closer to the Sun than the Earth, the orbit will still be far, far away, since the Sun is some 150 million kilometers away from us.
From its final vantage point which is called the Lagrangian Point-1, the 1,475 kilogram Aditya-L1 satellite will conduct scientific experiments to better understand the star of our solar system, which remains an enigma.
“The Indian solar observatory will have an uninterrupted and continuous view of the Sun and will help us understand space weather. It will act like a forecasting and warning platform for solar storms,” said Nigar Shaji, the Project Director for Aditya-L1 satellite at the U R Rao Satellite Center, Bengaluru.
A solar storm is a large-scale magnetic eruption on the Sun, which can effect the entire solar system.
“Since Aditya-L1 will look at Sun continuously, it can warn us of imminent solar electro-magnetic effects on Earth and protect our satellites, and other power electrical and communications networks from getting disrupted. This will help continue normal operations by operating them in safe modes, till the solar storm passes by,” S Somanath, Chairman, ISRO, told NDTV, adding that India has assets worth over ₹ 50,000 crores in space including over 50 operational satellites that need to be protected against the effects of the Sun.