Countdown starts: Is Aditya-L1 a complete Mission to study the Sun : No says ISRO

Chennai, Sep 1 : The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

said its maiden Solar exploratory Mission Aditya-L1 is not a complete one

to study the Sun due to limited mass, power and volume of the spacecraft

that carries scientific payloads in space.

“Is Aditya-L1 a complete Mission to study the Sun. The obvious answer

is a ‘NO’ which is not only true for Aditya-L1 but in general for any space

mission”, ISRO said.

The reason is that due to the limited mass, power and volume of the

spacecraft that carries the scientific payloads in space, only a limited

set of instruments with limited capacity can be sent onboard the

spacecraft, the Space Agency said.

In case of Aditya-L1, all the measurements will be made from the

Lagrange point L1. As an example, the various phenomena of the

sun are multi-directional and therefore the directional distribution

of energy of explosive/eruptive phenomena will not be possible to

study with Aditya-L1 alone, it added.

Another Lagrange point known as L5 is a good vantage point for

studying the Earth directed CME events and assessing the space

weather.

Also, the polar regions of the sun are not well studied due to

technological challenges of achieving spacecraft orbits for such

studies.

The sun polar dynamics and magnetic fields are believed to play

important role in deriving the solar cycles. Further, the polarisation

measurements of solar radiations at different wavelengths are

required to understand the various processes occurring in and

around the sun, ISRO said.