India's Aditya L1 Spacecraft Successfully Completes Third Earth-bound Manoeuvre

Aditya L1, India's first space mission to study the Sun, successfully completed its third earth-bound manoeuvre on Sunday.

The operation was carried out by the Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). During the manoeuvre, the satellite was tracked by ISRO's ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru, SDSC-SHAR, and Port Blair.

The new orbit achieved is 296 km x 71767 km. The next manoeuvre is scheduled for September 15 at around 2 a.m.

Aditya-L1, the inaugural Indian space-based observatory, is set to investigate the Sun's activities from a halo orbit encircling the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L1. This point is situated around 1.5 million km away from our planet.

The initial two earth-bound manoeuvres were accomplished successfully on September 3 and 5, respectively. Following one more earth-bound orbital manoeuvre, the spacecraft will be directed towards the Lagrange point L1, completing its journey to the designated transfer orbit.