After moon success, India launches rocket for solar study
Following its recent moon landing success, India's space agency launched a rocket on Saturday, marking its inaugural solar mission. The launch was live-streamed on the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) website, attracting more than 860,000 viewers. Thousands of onlookers gathered at a viewing gallery near the launch site to witness the probe's liftoff. Named "Aditya-L1," which translates to "sun" in Hindi, the spacecraft's mission is to study solar winds, which can disrupt Earth's magnetosphere and cause phenomena like auroras.
This solar mission comes on the heels of India's achievement as the first country to land on the south pole of the moon, outlasting Russia in a lunar landing competition. Prime Minister Modi has been advocating for India to take a more prominent role in space exploration on the global stage, aiming to replicate the country's IT success in the space sector.
"We have ensured that we will have a unique dataset that is not currently available from any other mission," said Sankar Subramanian, the principal scientist of the mission. He emphasized the mission's significance in understanding the sun, its dynamics, and the inner heliosphere, which is crucial for modern technology and space weather predictions.
Aditya-L1 is designed to travel 1.5 million km (930,000 miles) over four months, stopping at a Lagrange Point in space to conserve fuel due to gravitational forces. This mission is expected to have a profound impact on scientific understanding, particularly in safeguarding satellites from solar radiation, a critical concern as the number of satellites in low earth orbit continues to rise.
The mission's data could also provide insights into the sun's influence on Earth's climate patterns and the origins of solar wind. India, under Modi's leadership, has opened up its space launch sector to private investment and plans to increase its share of the global launch market fivefold in the coming decade.
As space becomes increasingly commercialized, India aims to showcase its capabilities in the sector through ISRO's successes.
