ISRO’s solar mission Aditya L1 successfully escaped the sphere of the Earth’s influence, the space agency informed on Saturday. Aditya L1 has covered a distance of 9.2 lakh kilometers and now navigating its path towards the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (L1). The solar mission is the second mission in succession where India successfully dispatched a spacecraft beyond the influence of Earth.
“This is the second time in succession that ISRO could send a spacecraft outside the sphere of influence of the Earth, the first time being the Mars Orbiter Mission”, the Indian space agency said in a post on social media platform X.
The development came days after the Aditya L1 mission completed a crucial maneuver to begin its 110-day trajectory to the destination around the L1 Lagrange point.
“Off to Sun-Earth L1 point! The Trans-Lagrangian Point 1 Insertion (TL1I) 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 maneuver after about 110 days”, ISRO had said in a post on X.
1.5 million kilometers journey
Aditya-L1 is slated to placed in a halo orbit encircling Lagrangian Point 1, positioned at a staggering 1.5 million kilometers from our planet, directly aligned with the Sun’s trajectory. This ambitious journey is projected to span a period of four months. Once established in its orbit, Aditya-L1 will maintain a constant distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, a minuscule fraction of the vast Earth-Sun separation.