New Delhi: Minutes after India's first solar space observatory, Aditya-L1, was successfully separated from the rocket and injected into an elliptical orbit around the Earth, a beaming ISRO chief congratulated his fellow scientists and India for the successful launch.
As soon as the separation was confirmed, ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) Project Director SR Biju announced, "PSLV C-57 Aditya-L1 mission is accomplished."
Mr Somanath said, “Congratulations, the Aditya L-1 spacecraft has been injected in an elliptical orbit of 235 by 19,500 km, which was intended, very precisely by the PSLV. Very unique mission mode here, with the upper stage of the PSLV taking two burn sequences for injecting the primary satellite for the first time. So I want to congratulate PSLV for a very different mission approach today.”
“From now, the Aditya-L1 will take its journey, after some Earth manoeuvres, it will start its journey to the L1 point. It's a very long journey, of almost 125 days. So let us wish all the very best to the Aditya spacecraft for its long journey and being put around the halo orbit of L1,” he added.
The ISRO chief pointed out that even as the launch was taking place, the Chandrayaan-3 lander Vikram and rover Pragyan were still functioning on the moon.
"The good news is that the rover had moved almost 100 metres from the lander and we are going to start the process of making both of them sleep in the coming one or two days because it has to withstand the (lunar) night," said Mr Somanath.
Aditya-L1 will be placed in the halo orbit around Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from Earth. It is carrying seven different payloads to conduct a detailed study of the sun.