New Delhi: After Chandrayaan-2, the ISRO has planned launch of its solar mission, Aditya-L1, in the first half of 2020 to study the Sun’s corona, according to the space agency.
Aditya-L1 is meant to observe the corona, which are the outer layers of the Sun, extending to thousands of kilometres.
“How the corona gets heated to such high temperatures is still an unanswered question in solar physics,” the ISRO stated on its website while sharing information about the mission.
India on Monday successfully launched its second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 onboard its powerful rocket GSLV-MkIII-M1 from the spaceport here to explore the unchartered south pole of the celestial body by landing a rover.
In a news conference last month, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K Sivan had said, “It is 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth. It will always look at the Sun and give analysis of the corona because it has a major impact on climate change.”
He said the mission is planned for launch in the first half of 2020.
Another interplanetary mission to Venus will be launched in the next 2-3 years, Sivan, who is also the secretary, Department of Space, had said.
Aditya-L1, with additional experiments, can provide observations of the Sun’s photosphere, chromosphere and corona.
In addition, particle payloads will study the particle flux emanating from the Sun, it added.
These payloads have to be placed outside the interference from the Earth’s magnetic field and cannot be useful in the low earth orbit, the ISRO added.
Also read: ISRO Chandrayaan-2 mission: Limited to symbolic national pride or is there a scientific gain?
While ISRO has always been a star performer, has anyone noticed that while it churns out tag lines like “billion dreams” in one of its endeavors, very little of its achievements are witnessed in daily popular science discussions? Let me give an example, remember “blue marble” pic of Earth …..its NASA in everyday everybody imagination for time immemorial ! Any space photographs ….attribute it to NASA mostly, what about ISRO? ISRO’s contributions may be immense, but it is not to accessible for lesser mortals like us. Make it accessible, make toys or scaled down versions of the rockets, let the kids play, put it in school how India’s 1st moon mission found water by using a NASA scanner, why space collaboration among countries work and why it is needed ?……..when you involve the guy in the street, you may just use billion dreams as a force multiplier to your already tremendous achievements.
Jai Hind !
Excellent suggestion. Outreach through education, entertainment (documentaries for DD) and merchandising are as important for a scientific enterprises like ISRO as the serious business of engineering, outsourcing and data gathering. It is time to learn a few things from the West on this.