Science
Aditya-L1 In 296 km x 71,767 km Orbit After ISRO Executes Third Earth-Bound Manoeuvre
An illustration of the Aditya-L1 spacecraft after it has been deployed, depicted in an ISRO mission booklet
India's Sun-focused spacecraft Aditya-L1 was pushed further out in space after the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) executed another Earth-bound manoeuvre early on Sunday (10 September).
In the third such move for the mission, Aditya-L1 was fired into a 296 km x 71,767 km orbit. Thus, at its farthest point in this new orbit around Earth, Aditya-L1 will be over 71,000 kilometres (km) away.
The move was executed successfully from the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bengaluru, at around 2.30 am.
"ISRO's ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru, SDSC-SHAR and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this operation," ISRO said on X.
The fourth of five planned Earth-bound manoeuvres is set to take place at around 2 am this Friday (15 September).
Aditya-L1 will have attained the velocity it needs for its long journey ahead to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L1 after the conclusion of the five Earth-bound manoeuvres by around 18 September.
It will take about 110 days to reach the vicinity of L1 thereafter. ISRO will then execute a manoeuvre to bind the spacecraft to an orbit around L1.
The spacecraft is estimated to take about four months to make the journey from Earth to L1, which are about 15 lakh kilometres apart.
ISRO shared Aditya-L1's first snaps on 7 September as a video featuring images of two key scientific instruments on board — the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) and the Solar Ultra-violet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) — as well as of the Earth and Moon.
The instruments and the Earth and Moon were imaged on 4 September, two days after launch and before the initiation of Earth-bound manoeuvres.
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