The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday revealed that its Aditya-L1 spacecraft is “healthy” and on its way to L1 Lagrange point, which is a balanced gravitational location between the earth and the sun. Aditya-L1 is the country's first space-based mission to study the sun.
ISRO said on October 6, Aditya-L1 successfully underwent a 16-second trajectory correction manoeuvre, which ensures that the spacecraft is on its intended path towards the Halo orbit insertion around L1, which is 1.5 million km from the our planet.
Taking to X, ISRO posted on Sunday, “The Spacecraft is healthy and on its way to Sun-Earth L1. A Trajectory Correction Maneuvre (TCM), originally provisioned, was performed on October 6, 2023, for about 16 s.”
“It was needed to correct the trajectory evaluated after tracking the Trans-Lagrangean Point 1 Insertion (TL1I) maneuvre performed on September 19, 2023. TCM ensures that the spacecraft is on its intended path towards the Halo orbit insertion around L1. As Aditya-L1 continues to move ahead, the magnetometer will be turned on again within a few days,” it added.
The latest milestone marks the beginning of Aditya-L1's nearly 110-day trajectory to the destination around the L1 Lagrange point.
Aditya-L1 underwent the fourth earth-bound manoeuvre on September 15. The first, second and third earth-bound manoeuvres were successfully performed on September 3, 5 and 10 respectively.
Upon arrival at the L1 point, another manoeuvre will pin the spacecraft to an orbit around L1.
