India’s sun-monitoring spacecraft has passed a significant milestone on its path to leave “the sphere of Earth’s influence,” the country’s space agency announced, days after the country was disappointed when its lunar rover failed to awaken.
Instruments designed to study the solar corona are aboard the Aditya-L1 mission, which set out on its four-month trip to the solar system’s centre on September 2.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said late Saturday that the spacecraft “has escaped the sphere of influence of Earth.”
The Hindu sun god’s namealike, Aditya, has covered 920,000 km (570,000 miles) so far on its voyage.
When this happens, the spacecraft is free to maintain its halo orbit around our nearest star without being affected by either of the bodies’ gravitational pulls.
With the success of the Mars Orbiter Mission, ISRO will be able to launch a spacecraft into interplanetary space for the second time in as many years.
In August, India became only the fourth nation in history to land on the moon and the first to do so near the largely unexplored lunar south pole.
Before the start of lunar darkness, which lasts around two weeks on Earth, Rover Pragyan explored the area around its landing site.
With the return of daylight on the lunar surface, India intended to reactivate the solar-powered rover to extend the mission, but so far, they have received no response.
ISRO head S. Somanath stated on Wednesday that it is fine if the rover does not wake up because it has completed its mission.
As of next year, India plans to launch a crewed mission into Earth orbit for three days. In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to deploy a ship into orbit around Mars.
Since NASA’s Pioneer programme in the 1960s, both the United States and the European Space Agency have deployed several probes to the solar system’s core.
Both Japan and China have sent space-based solar observatories into orbit around the planet.
If ISRO is successful with its newest mission, it will be the first Asian country to place a satellite in solar orbit.
© AFP
