Sriharikota, Sept 2: After a successful landing on the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is all set to launch its Aditya-L1 mission today at around 11.50 am from the second launch pad at Sriharikota.
Sources said, a 1,480 kg spacecraft will be carried by India’s workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and put in a highly elliptical orbit of 235 km x 19,500 km around the Earth. The PSLV in its XL configuration, which has six solid fuel-based boosters, will take just over an hour to place the satellite in orbit.
The orbit as well as the velocity of the spacecraft will then be increased till it is slingshot towards the Sun. The distance of 1.5 million km to L1 point will be covered in nearly four months (125 days). The spacecraft will then be inserted in a halo orbit around the L1 point. The seven science experiments onboard will continue collecting data for the next five years.
The 2 hours 50 minutes left for the launch. The range the spacecraft will travel is just 1% of the 150 million km distance to the Sun.
