After making history by becoming the first to land near the Moon’s South Pole, India on Saturday launched its first observation mission to the Sun. The spacecraft called Aditya-L1 took launch from Sriharikota and is bound to travel 1.5 million km in its journey to the Sun. The travel time is expected to be 4 months.
The studies of the Sun will help scientists understand solar activity, such as solar wind and solar flares, and their effect on Earth and near-space weather in real time.
Although the Indian Space Research Agency (ISRO) is yet to give a figure for the cost of the mission, reports floating in the Indian media are putting it at Rs 3.78 billion. The budget includes all research, development, and testing phases as well as the high-end equipment and expertise required for investigating the Sun's corona.
Like the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission, India’s maiden voyage to Sun also received help from entities outside ISRO. Locally manufactured products by four Kerala-based public sector undertakings, which are Keltron, Steel and Industrial Forgings Ltd, Travancore Cochin Chemicals, and Kerala Automobiles Ltd, have been used in the Aditya L1 mission.
Apart from the help received from the PSUs, ISRO has collaborated with institutes such as the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), and the European Space Agency (ESA) to bring the mission to life. The ESA provided crucial support to ISRO to monitor the Chandrayaan-3’s health, and will be supporting Aditya-L1 with deep space communication services.
Also, Ananth Technologies announced that it partnered with ISRO in the country’s first ever solar mission. The company is a partner for ISRO in precision engineering and high reliability manufacturing for space applications.
