India to launch first solar mission in 2020

World Sunday 16/June/2019 16:26 PM
By: Times News Service
India to launch first solar mission in 2020

Mumbai: India's Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said it will launch the country's first solar mission in 2020.

The announcement was made by ISRO Chairman K Sivan, who said the mission would be called Aditya-L1.

"The aim of the mission is to keep a permanent eye on the sun without any disturbance. Aditya-L1 is meant to observe the solar corona," Sivan told a press conference in New Delhi. "There are still a lot of things that are to be learnt about the sun."

According to Sivan, Aditya-L1 mission is expected to be inserted in a halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1), which is 1.5 million km from Earth, giving it the advantage of continuously viewing the sun without any occultation or eclipses.

ISRO also stated it planned to have a space station for India by 2030.

A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting crew members, designed to remain in space for an extended period of time and for other spacecraft to dock, the most commonly known being the International Space Station.

ISRO also announced that they would send their first mission human into space in 2022. Speaking to the press, Union Minister and head of the Department of Space Dr Jitendra Singh said: "On the occasion of India's 75th Independence Anniversary in 2022, ISRO has pledged to send its first human mission to space."

The Gaganyaan National Advisory Council would monitor the preparations for the mission, he added.

At present, ISRO is focusing on India's second mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-2, which will take off on July 15. Chandrayaan-2 is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission, which was launched around 10 years ago.