India's solar mission Aditya L-1 reaches final destination; yet another landmark, says Modi

INDIA'S space mission remained witness to yet another historic moment on Saturday (6) when Aditya L1, the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) ambitious project to study the sun, reached its final goal following a final maneuver at 4 pm local time.

The feat means the spacecraft is in the halo orbit and can undertake a study of the blazing ball of fire from the Lagrange Point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system. The L1 point is located about 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth and one per cent of the total distance between the Earth and sun.

Aditya L-1 was launched on September 2 last year to observe the sun's corona and understand its extreme heat from a halo orbit around the Sun-earth Lagrangian Point.

Read: India’s first solar mission spacecraft Aditya-L1 gets send off from Earth: ISRO

In a statement, ISRO said, “The sun is a very dynamic star that extends much beyond what we see. It shows several eruptive phenomena and releases immense amounts of energy in the solar system. If such explosive solar phenomena is directed towards the earth, it could cause various types of disturbances in the near earth space environment.”

The achievement comes less than five months after India became the fourth country in the world to land its spacecraft on moon and the first to reach the natural satellite's unexplored south pole.

Read: India on the moon, says ISRO chief as Chandrayaan-3 makes successful landing on 23.8.23

Prime minister Narendra Modi lauded the latest space achievement, saying on X, "India creates yet another landmark. India’s first solar observatory, Aditya-L1 reaches its destination.

"It is a testament to the relentless dedication of our scientists in realising among the most complex and intricate space missions. I join the nation in applauding this extraordinary feat. We will continue to pursue new frontiers of science for the benefit of humanity."

He had directly flown to Bengaluru where ISRO is based from Greece to meet the country's space scientists after the moon mission (Chandrayaan-3) achieved success last August.

Aditya L1 will next go through a commissioning phase and start observing the sun to understand the star in the solar system better.