Key payload for mission to sun ready, says Isro

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) on Thursday handed over the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) -- the largest payload to be carried on board the Aditya-L1 -- the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) on Thursday handed over the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) -- the largest payload to be carried on board the Aditya-L1 -- the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).

The VELC payload on-board Aditya-L1 is an internally occulted solar coronagraph with simultaneous imaging, spectroscopy and spectro-polarimetry channels close to the solar limb. (ANI)

“The VELC was built at IIA’s Centre for Research and Education in Science and Technology (CREST) campus in Hoskote and now that the payload has been officially handed over, Isro will conduct further testing and will proceed to integrate it with the Aditya-L1 spacecraft,” the Isro statement read.

Aditya-L1 is India’s first dedicated scientific mission to study the sun. Earlier, this mission was conceived as Aditya-1 with a 400kg class satellite carrying one payload, the VELC, and was planned to be launched in an 800km low earth orbit.

However, since a satellite placed in the halo orbit around the first Lagrangian Point (L1) of the sun-earth system has the major advantage of continuously viewing the sun without any occultation/eclipses, the Aditya-1 mission was renamed as Aditya-L1 mission, which will be inserted in a halo orbit around the L1—1.5 million km from the earth towards the sun.

The satellite carries additional six payloads — SUIT, the solar ultraviolet imaging telescope, ASPEX (Aditya Solar Wind Particle Experiment), PAPA (Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya), SoLEXS (Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer), HEL1OS (High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray spectrometer) and Magnetometer — with enhanced science scope and objectives possible by extensive remote and in-situ observation of the sun.

In an interaction with HT earlier this week, Isro chairman S Somnath had said that the mission is likely to be scheduled for April or May this year.

The VELC payload on-board Aditya-L1 is an internally occulted solar coronagraph with simultaneous imaging, spectroscopy and spectro-polarimetry channels close to the solar limb.

“Both imaging and spectroscopic observations obtained by VELC payload are key to study the diagnostic parameters of solar corona and dynamics as well as origin of the coronal mass ejections and magnetic field measurements of the solar corona,” IIA said in a statement.