India’s first sun-observing mission is about to arrive at its last stop in a few hours.
Isro will try to put Aditya-L1 in a place in space on Saturday. From there, it can always see the Sun.
The spaceship has been flying towards the Sun for four months since it launched on 2 September.
It was launched a few days after India made history by being the first to land close to the Moon’s south pole.
India is sending its first mission to study the biggest thing in our solar system, the sun. It is named after Surya, the Hindu god of the sun, also known as Aditya. L1 stands for a specific point in space between the Sun and Earth where the spacecraft is going.
The European Space Agency says a Lagrange point is a place where the gravity from two big things, like the Sun and the Earth, cancels out. This makes it possible for a spaceship to stay in one place without moving.
L1 is 1% of the distance from Earth to the Sun, and it’s 1. 5 million km away from Earth. That’s about 932,000 miles. Isro said the spacecraft is close to reaching its destination.
An official from Isro told the BBC that they will make a last adjustment to Aditya’s orbit on Saturday at around 4:00pm in India (10:30 GMT) to put it in L1’s orbit.
The head of Isro, S Somanath, said they will steer the craft into orbit and have to make adjustments from time to time to keep it in position.
Once Aditya-L1 reaches this “parking spot” it will orbit the Sun at the same speed as the Earth. From here, it can keep an eye on the Sun all the time, even during eclipses and occultations, and do science research.
The orbiter has seven tools to look at and learn about the sun’s outer layer, its surface, and the thin layer between them.
After the spaceship launched on 2 September, it circled the Earth four times before finally leaving Earth’s gravity on 30 September. In early October, Isro made a small change to the path of their spacecraft to make sure it was heading in the right direction towards its final destination.
The agency says that some of the tools on the ship have already begun working, collecting information and taking pictures.
Just a few days after the spacecraft launched, Isro shared the first pictures it received from the mission. One picture showed the Earth and the Moon together, and the second was a photo of two scientific instruments.
Last month, the agency shared the first pictures of the whole Sun in different colors. They said the images give us new information about the details of the Sun’s surface and outer layer.
Researchers believe that the mission will allow them to learn about solar activity and how it affects Earth’s weather, as well as weather in space.
The Sun’s radiation, heat, particles, and magnetic fields always affect the weather on Earth. They also affect the weather in space, where almost 7,800 satellites, including over 50 from India, are located.
Experts say that Aditya can help us understand and predict solar winds and eruptions a few days before they happen. This will help India and other countries move their satellites to safety.
Isro has not told us how much the mission cost, but some reports in India say it’s about 3. 78 billion rupees, which is equal to about $46 million or £36 million.
If Saturday’s plan works, India will be part of a small group of countries that are studying the Sun.
Nasa, Japan, and ESA have been looking at the Sun for a long time. Nasa started in the 1960s, Japan in 1981, and ESA in the 1990s.
In February 2020, Nasa and ESA worked together to send a Solar Orbiter into space. This spacecraft is getting up close to the Sun and collecting information. Scientists believe this will help them learn more about what makes the Sun act the way it does.
In 2021, Nasa’s new spacecraft Parker Solar Probe was the first to fly through the corona, the Sun’s outer atmosphere, which is a big deal.