Daily Times

India on Saturday launched its first space mission to study the sun. Aditya-L1 spacecraft was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, located in southern India at 11.50 a.m. local time (0620GMT), according to Press Information Bureau. The spacecraft would study the sun from a point about 1.5 million kilometres (930,000 miles) from Earth. The launch came over a week after the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 near the south polar region of the moon. “The launch of Aditya-L1 by PSLV-C57 is accomplished successfully. The (satellite launch) vehicle has placed the satellite precisely into its intended orbit,” India Space Research Organization said on X.

The Aditya-L1 is headed for the L1 point of the Earth-Sun system, which affords an uninterrupted view of the sun, ISRO said, adding: “This will provide a greater advantage of observing solar activities and their effect on space weather in real-time.”