India’s Aditya-L1, a coronagraphy spacecraft to study the solar atmosphere, designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has gone a little further towards the sun. The vehicle changed orbit one more time late last Thursday night. The spacecraft changed its orbit for the fourth time late on Thursday night, said ISRO. It has entered the fifth orbit. This further increased the speed of Aditya-L1. The distance from the earth has also increased. Earlier on 3rd, 5th and 10th September the first, second and third orbits were successfully changed by Spacecraft.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said on its X (formerly Twitter) handle that, “Solar spacecraft has successfully changed its fourth orbit. The spacecraft is being monitored from the Satish Dhawan Space Research Center in Mauritius, Bengaluru and ISRO’s ground station at Port Blair.”
According to ISRO, Aditya-L1 is currently in an orbit of 256 km * 1,21,973 km. This means that when Aditya-L1 will come closest to Earth in its current orbit, it will be at a distance of 256 km. The furthest distance will be 1,21,973 km.
ISRO further informed that, Aditya-L1 will change its next orbit around the sun on September 19, around 2.30 am. That will be the last step of the spacecraft to overcome the pull of the earth. The vehicle will be sent outside the Earth’s gravity. Aditya will take another 110 days to reach the Lagrange point (L1 point) between the Earth and the Sun after overcoming the pull of Earth’s gravitational force. On reaching there, the spacecraft will closely observe the sun.
