The sun shines on India's Aditya

[Bad Guy]

After a seven year long wait, Aditya, India’s first dedicated scientific mission to study the sun is likely to get a go-ahead from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) this week. The ambitious solar mission will study the sun’s outer mostblayers, the corona and the chromosphere, collect data about coronal mass ejection and more, which will also yield information for space weather prediction.
The project costs approximately Rs 400 crores and is a joint venture between ISRO and physicists from Indian Institute of Astrophysics,
Bengaluru; Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and other institutes.
Though the project was conceptualised in 2008 itself, it has since morphed and
grown and is now awaiting clearance with the government. It now aims to put a heavy satellite into what is called a halo orbit around the L1 point between the Sun
and the Earth. This point is at a distance of about 1.5 million km from the earth. With the excitement about the Mars Orbiter Mission yet to settle down, this
could be the next most complicated feat that ISRO has carried out till date.
In a three-body problem such as this – with the earth and sun engaged in an elliptical orbit and a relatively very light, call it massless in comparison, satellite being placed in between – there are five so-called lagrangian points in space where the light, third body — in our case, the satellite — may be placed so that it can maintain its position with respect to the two others. One of these is the L1 point, which is about 1.5 million km from the earth.
A halo orbit would be a circular orbit around the L1 point. The satellite will have to use its own power (spend energy) to remain in positio within in this orbit without losing its way. Such orbits have not been attempted too often. Studying the corona. Among the suite of instruments in the payload would be a solar coronagraph. “A combination of imaging and spectroscopy in multi-wavelength will enhance our understanding of the solar atmosphere. It will provide high time cadence sharp images of the solar chromosphere and the corona in the emission lines. These images will be used to study the highly dynamic nature of the solar corona including the small-scale coronal loops and large-scale Coronal Mass Ejections,” said Dipankar Banerjee, physicist from IIA, who is part of this project. The corona is the outermost layer of the Sun and the chromosphere is the second inner layer. Data such as this can help us understand the corona and solar wind, which is a spewing of charged particles into space, at speeds as high as 900 km/s and at about 1 million degrees Celsius temperature, affecting the environment there.
Just like on earth, environment in space changes due to happenings in the sun, such as solar storms (flares). This is known as space weather. Dibyendu Nandi, Head of Center of Excellence in Space Sciences, IISER, Kolkata, describes it so:
“Solar storms and space weather affect satellite operations. They may interfere with electronic circuitry of satellites and also, through enhanced drag (friction effects), impact satellite mission lifetimes. They also impact the positional accuracy of satellites and thus impact GPS navigational networks. Space weather also impacts telecommunications, satellite TV broadcasts which are dependent on satellite-based transmission.”
Dr Nandi works in building models that can
predict space weather. Hopeful about Aditya’s contribution to this, he remarks “The data from Aditya mission will be immensely helpful in discriminating between different models for the origin of solar storms and also for constraining how the storms evolve and what path they take through the interplanetary space from the Sun to the Earth. The forecasting models we are.building will therefore be complemented by the Aditya observations.”
At the moment, there are models and
calculations made by NASA which Indian
scientists use to maintain their satellites. Now, there is a possibility of Indians developing their.own space weather prediction models.
The Sun Shines on India's Aditya-The Hindu

 

[Bad Guy]

@IndoCarib
@Hindustani78
@Echo_419

 

[Echo_419]

View attachment 272185
After a seven year long wait, Aditya, India’s first dedicated scientific mission to study the sun is likely to get a go-ahead from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) this week. The ambitious solar mission will study the sun’s outer mostblayers, the corona and the chromosphere, collect data about coronal mass ejection and more, which will also yield information for space weather prediction.
The project costs approximately Rs 400 crores and is a joint venture between ISRO and physicists from Indian Institute of Astrophysics,
Bengaluru; Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, and other institutes.
Though the project was conceptualised in 2008 itself, it has since morphed and
grown and is now awaiting clearance with the government. It now aims to put a heavy satellite into what is called a halo orbit around the L1 point between the Sun
and the Earth. This point is at a distance of about 1.5 million km from the earth. With the excitement about the Mars Orbiter Mission yet to settle down, this
could be the next most complicated feat that ISRO has carried out till date.
In a three-body problem such as this – with the earth and sun engaged in an elliptical orbit and a relatively very light, call it massless in comparison, satellite being placed in between – there are five so-called lagrangian points in space where the light, third body — in our case, the satellite — may be placed so that it can maintain its position with respect to the two others. One of these is the L1 point, which is about 1.5 million km from the earth.
A halo orbit would be a circular orbit around the L1 point. The satellite will have to use its own power (spend energy) to remain in positio within in this orbit without losing its way. Such orbits have not been attempted too often. Studying the corona. Among the suite of instruments in the payload would be a solar coronagraph. “A combination of imaging and spectroscopy in multi-wavelength will enhance our understanding of the solar atmosphere. It will provide high time cadence sharp images of the solar chromosphere and the corona in the emission lines. These images will be used to study the highly dynamic nature of the solar corona including the small-scale coronal loops and large-scale Coronal Mass Ejections,” said Dipankar Banerjee, physicist from IIA, who is part of this project. The corona is the outermost layer of the Sun and the chromosphere is the second inner layer. Data such as this can help us understand the corona and solar wind, which is a spewing of charged particles into space, at speeds as high as 900 km/s and at about 1 million degrees Celsius temperature, affecting the environment there.
Just like on earth, environment in space changes due to happenings in the sun, such as solar storms (flares). This is known as space weather. Dibyendu Nandi, Head of Center of Excellence in Space Sciences, IISER, Kolkata, describes it so:
“Solar storms and space weather affect satellite operations. They may interfere with electronic circuitry of satellites and also, through enhanced drag (friction effects), impact satellite mission lifetimes. They also impact the positional accuracy of satellites and thus impact GPS navigational networks. Space weather also impacts telecommunications, satellite TV broadcasts which are dependent on satellite-based transmission.”
Dr Nandi works in building models that can
predict space weather. Hopeful about Aditya’s contribution to this, he remarks “The data from Aditya mission will be immensely helpful in discriminating between different models for the origin of solar storms and also for constraining how the storms evolve and what path they take through the interplanetary space from the Sun to the Earth. The forecasting models we are.building will therefore be complemented by the Aditya observations.”
At the moment, there are models and
calculations made by NASA which Indian
scientists use to maintain their satellites. Now, there is a possibility of Indians developing their.own space weather prediction models.
The Sun Shines on India's Aditya-The Hindu

Brilliant news

 

[Skull and Bones]

India should move ahead with manned mission within 5 years.

 

[SanjeevaniButi]

India should move ahead with manned mission within 5 years.

Why ?

 

[Skull and Bones]

Why ?

For science.

 

[SanjeevaniButi]

For science.

Indeed .... what part specifically ?

 

[Ankit Kumar]

Any example of similar missions by west will help not so knowledgeable ones like me to get hold of this and its importance.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Indeed .... what part specifically ?

Study of microbiology in zero gravity that can effect modern biotechnology, long term effect of zero gravity on human body for long distance space travel, study of self sustainable micro habitat for sustainable space colonies.

 

[nForce]

India should move ahead with manned mission within 5 years.

With the advancement in technology, many things that needed a man before can now be replaced by remote sensing devices. So, we should not focus our efforts on sending a man. Our objective should be to observe, study and learn, and avoid sending a man unless it is absolutely necessary to do so.
A hell lot of systems have to be developed to ensure survival of the man out in space and another set of systems to ensure his successful comeback.

 

[SanjeevaniButi]

Study of microbiology in zero gravity that can effect modern biotechnology, long term effect of zero gravity on human body for long distance space travel, study of self sustainable micro habitat for sustainable space colonies.

We have a LONG way to go before we can think about Space travel or Colonies.

Study of microbiology in zero gravity do not need Humans in space, only relevant culture in space with relevant observational equipments, data storage and transmission device. A Lot cheaper than sending men in space.

 

[Providence]

Any example of similar missions by west will help not so knowledgeable ones like me to get hold of this and its importance.
Thanks in advance.

Nothing which would be earth shattering.

Lagrangian points are those points, where the light mass (probe) can stay the same w.r.t two heavy objects.

For any three body system (including probe) where m3 << m1, m2 (earth/sun etc) , there will always be 5 Lagrangian points.

L3 is unstable. L2 is best suited for study of the universe without solar interference and L1 is best for solar coronal studies.

L4 and L5 would be too far to do a real time study of any phenomenon.

 

[RISING SUN]

Here comes the sun watcher, India’s Aditya-L1
Sometime in 2019 or 2020 India will send ISRO’s solar mission Aditya-L1 to a vantage point in space, known as the L1 Lagrange point, to do imaging and study of the sun. This launch will happen in the early part of the next solar cycle - an occurrence in which sunspots form on the face of the sun, growing in size and number and eventually diminishing, all over a period of eleven years. It will be a mission of many firsts.

The so-called L1 point is 1.5 million kilometres away. Here, due to the delicate balance of gravitational forces, the satellite will require very little energy to maintain its orbit. Also it will not be eclipsed from the sun. The 1,500-kg class satellite will be programmed to orbit this point and image the sun’s magnetic field from space for the very first time in the world. Scientists hope to capture the close-ups of the sun from here, uninterrupted by eclipses for years.

Few other space agencies have successfully placed their satellites at this location. Among the few, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a NASA-ESA collaboration involving America and Europe, and NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) are at L1 exclusively to study the sun and space weather, respectively. Aditya-L1 is expected to be the very first to study from space two months from the time of launch, the magnetic field of the sun’s corona. The corona is the outer layer that we see during total solar eclipses. It will be the first 100% Indian mission which will not only negotiate a challenging orbit, but will also benefit the global scientific community in understanding the sun.

Deeper look
Earlier, the NASA-ESA mission SOHO was launched in 1995, and while it made many discoveries, its coronagraph, meant to image the sun, broke down shortly after the mission commenced. Hence there is currently no satellite imaging the sun from space. Aditya-L1 will not only fill this gap it will also literally, look deeper into the sun than SOHO. “The nominal mission lifetime is expected to be five years, though it is expected to go on for much longer, perhaps even ten,” says Dipankar Banerjee from Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIAP), Bengaluru, which is collaborating with ISRO on this project.

The mission will carry seven payloads,consisting of a coronagraph, equipment that will image the sun using ultraviolet filters, X-ray spectrometers, and particle samplers all being made within the country.

The largest payload, or instrument, aboard the satellite, will be the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VLEC). This can view the sun more closely than has been done before even by SOHO.

With this advantage, the instrument has the capacity to observe the loop-like magnetic structures that form in the corona, the outer layer of the sun. “This will be the first experiment to measure the coronal magnetic field from a space platform. This was not even done by SOHO,” says Dipankar Banerjee, the Science Working Group Chair of VELC.

Between them, the three payloads — VLEC, the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) and the X-ray spectrometers — can image the sun in all wavelengths.

Like seasonal changes on the earth, the sun experiences approximately eleven-year-long cycles during which sunspots, caused by the sun’s magnetic field, start forming, increase in the ascending phase and decrease in the descending phase towards the end of the cycle.

“Studying coronal mass ejections [a phenomenon that would correlate with high sunspot activity] is not the only objective. This study can also help us understand the coronal heating problem,” says Prof. Banerjee. The ‘coronal heating problem’ refers to the fact that the photosphere, a deeper layer of the sun, is at a much lower temperature than the outer layer, the corona. Since it is believed that the heating process happens from within, what causes this heating of the outer layer, the corona, remains a mystery. Observations by Aditya-L1 of the magnetic fields bubbling out of the photosphere into the corona will help shed light on this.

First proposed in 2008 as a 400 kg-class satellite with one scientific instrument, a coronagraph, the project has since changed and grown in size and scope. Aditya-L1 will carry seven payloads. Each of these will either image the sun or sample the space around it for traces of charged particles spewed out by the sun during coronal mass ejections.

The payloads alone will weigh close to 250 kg. The biggest of these is the VLEC, about 170 kg. The next is SUIT, weighing around 35 kg; others are much lighter. Orbiting about the L1 point, due to a play of gravitational forces acting on it, Aditya-L1 will require little energy to keep it in place.

The ultraviolet (UV) imaging payload will capture the sun using UV filters, something that is not possible from Earth. the wavelength range 200-400 nanometres. This is The range of ultraviolet light to be observed is prevented from entering the lower layers of the earth’s atmosphere by the ozone layer in the stratosphere. Ozone depletion can lead to this radiation filtering through to lower levels where it can have harmful effects. Since this radiation is stopped at the stratosphere, images of the sun in this wavelength cannot be obtained on earth. Therefore, this will be the first time a UV imaging of the sun will be done.

Durgesh Tripathi and A.N. Ramaprakash of Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) are the principal investigators for the SUIT payload. “When it was decided that the project expanded and the satellite was to be placed in L1 point, ISRO called for proposals for developing more instruments. The original payload was also improved to form the VLEC and six more payloads were added,” says Prof. Tripathi.

Apart from this, the two in situ particle-detection payloads - Aditya Solar wind Particle EXperiment (ASPEX) and Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA) will study aspects that affect space weather. the origin of solar wind ions, their reaction to coronal mass ejections, the distribution of these in the heliosphere – the space around the sun that extends up to Pluto - and so on. The various payloads in Aditya-L1 will also study space weather.
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/sc...her-indias-aditya-l1/article20942099.ece/amp/

 

[ashok321]

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/isro-mission-to-sun/1/1098038.html

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to launch 'Aditya-L1', the first Indian mission to study the sun, by the year 2020.

ISRO Director Mylswamy Annadurai, while recently revealing the space agency's plans, also said that the space organisation is planning to launch four more important satellites in the next three months and is working to launch 70 satellites in the next three years.

More about the Aditya-L1 mission

• The Aditya-1 mission was conceived as a 400kg class satellite carrying one payload, the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) and was planned to launch in 800 km low earth orbit

• A Satellite placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/ eclipses

• Therefore, the Aditya-1 mission has now been revised to "Aditya-L1 mission" and will be inserted in a halo orbit around the L1, which is 1.5 million km from the Earth. The satellite carries additional six payloads with enhanced science scope and objectives

• With additional experiments Aditya-L1 can now provide observations of Sun's photosphere (soft and hard X-ray), chromosphere (UV), and corona (Visible and NIR)

• The project has been approved and the satellite will be launched in the 2019 - 2020 timeframe by PSLV-XL from Sriharikota

What is the solar corona?
The outer layers of the Sun, extending to thousands of km above the disc (photosphere) is termed as the corona. Aditya-1 was meant to observe only the solar corona. It has a temperature of more than a million degree Kelvin which is much higher than the solar disc temperature of around 6000K.
Solar physicists haven't yet been able to know how the corona gets heated to such high temperatures.

Main aim of the solar mission
The main aim of the solar mission is to do coronal and near UV studies of the sun and help resolve some unanswered questions in solar physics.
List of payloads and their objective

• Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC): To study the diagnostic parameters of solar corona and dynamics and origin of Coronal Mass Ejections (3 visible and 1 Infra-Red channels); to conduct the magnetic field measurement of solar corona down to tens of Gauss

• Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT): To image the spatially resolved solar photosphere and chromosphere in near ultraviolet (200-400 nm) and measure solar irradiance variations

• Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX): To study the variation of solar wind properties as well as its distribution and spectral characteristics

• Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA): To understand the composition of solar wind and its energy distribution

• Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS): To monitor the X-ray flares for studying the heating mechanism of the solar corona

• High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS): To observe the dynamic events in the solar corona and provide an estimate of the energy used to accelerate the particles during the eruptive events.

• Magnetometer: To measure the magnitude and nature of the interplanetary magnetic field.

 

[#hydra#]

We have a UV telescope in space,apart from its launch no news or scientific data is available to public so far.
More than solar observatory,what we require is a general purpose space telescope of our own. Except ladak,all other regions in are either polluted by urban lights or dust or high humidity,not suitable for terrestrial telescopes.