Aditya L1 | Current Affairs by Mr. Venkatesan (narrated by Ms. Gracy) | MCC IAS Academy

Aditya L1 is a spacecraft launched by ISRO to observe the Photosphere, Chromosphere and Corona of the Sun. The L1 stands for Lagrange Point 1 with is a position in space between the Earth and the Sun. Recently, ISRO successfully positioned the spacecraft in the Halo orbit around the L1 point . The mission has a lifespan of atleast 5 years from 2023 to 2028. The spacecraft carries 7 payloads which are as follows.
Visible Emission Line Coronagraph, UV Imaging Telescope, High and Low Energy X-ray Spectrometers, Particle Experiment, Plasma Analyzer Package and Tri-axial High Resolution Digital Magnetometers.
While the first 4 are remote sensing payloads for studying solar radiations the next 3 are insitu payloads for studying solar particles from flares, solar winds and coronal mass ejections.
The Spacecraft is placed in Lagrange point 1 which is about 1.5 million kilometers away from the Earth in the direction towards the Sun. There are 5 different Lagrange Points where the gravitational forces and centrifugal forces of three masses balance each other.
L1 as already said is 1.5 million kilometers from the earth towards the sun, where gravity of earth balances the gravity of the sun. It is here that aditya L1 is placed.
L2 is at 1.5 million kilometers from the earth away from the sun, where centrifugal force spacecraft balances the gravity of both earth and the sun. It is here the James Webb Space Telescope is placed.
L3 is at 300 million kilometers from the earth and 150 million kilometers from the sun. It is one the opposite side of Earth in the same orbit
L4 and L5 occupy the vertices of an equilateral triangle connecting Earth Sun and the Lagrange Points L4 and L5. Hence they are 150 million kilometers from Sun as well as from the Earth.
Among these points, the L1,L2 and L3 are unstable points, which means that there is need of station keeping once in a while for the spacecraft to stay in these Lagrange points. L4 and L5 are stable Lagrange points that do not need station keeping. Station keeping is the process of bringing back a drifting spacecraft back to its initial position. To understand this much better imagine the L1, L2 and L3 points as gravity hills and L4 and L5 as gravity bowls.
The summary of the these information is given in the upcoming slide for your reference
Aditya L1 is not placed exactly on the L1 point but in an orbit around the L1 point. This orbit is created around the L1 point due to constant maneuvers for station keeping. The orbit created around the unstable Lagrange points are called Lissajous orbit. Among the lissajous orbit, the halo orbit is periodic in nature, that is, the orbital period in halo orbit is constant compared to other lissajous orbits.
Because of the revolution in Halo orbit the spacecraft seem to move up and down while revolving around the Sun.
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Content- Mr. Venkatesan S.
Narration- Ms. Gracy Evangelina
Video Editing- Mr. Adarsh Jacob