First Halo Orbit Complete: Here's A Bit About the Achievement by India's L1

Here comes a proud moment for every Indian who had great expectations from Aditya-L1, the first space-based solar observatory. On Monday, ISRO expressed that the country's very first space-based solar observatory named Aditya-L1, has been successful in completing its halo orbit. This was the very first such orbit that the observatory finished around the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrangian point.

It was last year, on the 2nd of September, that Aditya-L1, the solar observatory got launched. It began chasing its target of a halo orbit on the 6th of January, 2024. Now, the solar observatory has been successful in achieving this feat.

ISRO expressed a lot of details about the solar observatory and its very first halo orbit. ISRO expressed that the Aditya-L1 mission is actually formulated to study the Sun. The observatory, as explained by ISRO, takes over 178 days in order to make one complete revolution around the L1 point.

Now, ISRO further explained that the spacecraft witnesses various perturbing forces. These forces can actually lead to deviations from the desired path. 

ISRO is always ready with answers and solutions. It further said that in order to deal with this issue, the team has performed a total of three important space-keeping maneuvers since the start of the mission.

The maneuvres

ISRO has suggested that it performed three maneuvres. The first and the second maneuvres took place on the 22nd of February and 7th of June, 2024, respectively.

The third maneuver took place on July 2. It is the third maneuver that made the transition of the spacecraft into the second halo orbit around the L1 possible.

Well, a substantial amount of the credit goes to the flight dynamics software that is designed at the UR Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru.

ISRO expressed that the success of the mission on accurately modeling complex dynamics. The success is also reliant on a deep understanding of the forces that affect the spacecraft. Elements like these are important to determine the trajectory. They are also important to plan orbit maneuvers.

A diagram has also been released by ISRO that depicts the orbit of the spacecraft. This orbit is demonstrated as a blue trajectory that is projected on the X-Y plane. The picture thus demonstrates the potential divergent path that the spacecraft could have pursued sans accurate maneuvering.

Aditya-L1 as a solar observatory is on its determined mission to offer pivotal insights into the solar phenomena.