After Chandrayaan-3’s lunar landing on the south pole, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) achieved another major milestone on Saturday when its Aditya L1, the nation’s first solar observatory, entered the “Halo orbit” at the Lagrange L1 point! The spacecraft, carrying seven payloads, was launched over four months ago in September and has now traveled around 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
Investigating the physics of the solar corona and its heating mechanisms, solar wind acceleration, solar atmosphere dynamics, solar wind distribution and temperature anisotropy, and the causes of flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) as well as near-Earth space weather are the main objectives.
After the last orbit injection, ISRO declared that the chosen halo orbit guarantees a five-year mission lifetime. This orbit minimizes the need for maneuvers related to station-keeping, which saves fuel and allows for an uninterrupted, uninterrupted view of the Sun
