New Delhi, India

Aditya L1 Mission: After Chandrayaan-3, the Indian Space Research Organisation is all set to launch India's first space-based solar mission Aditya L1 this week. ISRO Chief S Somanath on Saturday (August 26) announced that the solar mission has reached Sriharikota and is ready to be launched. The launch will take place on September 02, Hindustan Times reported.

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In a tweet on X, ISRO shared a post sharing the details about the mission. The post read, "The launch of Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun, is scheduled for September 2, 2023, at 11:50 Hrs. IST from Sriharikota." The post also shared live-streaming details for people interested.

Also read | Moon mission successful, India's Sun mission Aditya-L1 to be launched in two weeks

The spacecraft is planned to be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrange Point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is almost 1.5 million km away from the Earth. 

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Somanath said, "After the launch, it will take 125 days from the Earth to reach Lagrange point 1 (L1). We have to wait till then." 

The Aditya L-1 mission aims to study the sun from an orbit around the L1 and will carry seven payloads to observe coronal heating, solar wind acceleration, coronal magnetometry, origin along with chromosphere, photosphere and the outermost layer. 

Watch | Aditya-L1 mission: All about the Lagrange point L1, the location of ISRO's spacecraft on Sun

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What is Lagrange Point?

The Lagrange point, also known as L1, is positioned in space where the objects sent there are to stay. It was named in honour of Italian-French mathematician Josephy-Loius Lagrange. 

There are five special points where a small mass can orbit in a constant pattern with two larger masses. Of these Lagrange points, three are unstable and two are stable. 

The unstable points are labelled L1, L2 and L3 while the stable Lagrange points are L4 and L5. 

Also read | Aditya L1: India's first space-based mission to study Sun

The L1 point of the Earth-Sun system affords an uninterrupted view of the sun and is currently home to the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Satellite or SOHO. 

Meanwhile, L2 is ideal for astronomy because a spacecraft is close enough to communicate with Earth and can keep the sun, Earth and Moon behind the spacecraft and L3 remains behind the sun. 

However, L4 and L5 are stable as long as the mass ratio between the two large masses exceeds 24.96. Objects orbiting at the L4 and L5 points are often called Trojans after the three large asteroids Agamemnon, Achilles and Hector that orbit at both points of the Jupiter-Sun system.

(With inputs from agencies)

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