23 students of Punjab government schools witness Aditya L1 launch at Sriharikota

NEW DELHI: The Punjab government today said 23 students of state government schools witnessed the launch of PSLV-C57, which is carrying Aditya L1, at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, in Andhra Pradesh.

India’s first solar mission Aditya L1 was launched on the PSLV-C57 on 11:50 AM today at Sriharikota. Punjab school education minister Harjot Singh Bains said the students took flight from Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport from Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar.

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He added that the expenses of the trip will be borne by the state government. “The Punjab government aims to raise interest in science and technology among students studying in the government schools of the state,” Bains said.

The Punjab government had earlier sent two batches of students to Sriharikota during the launch of Chandrayaan 3 and PSLV-C56.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) today successfully launched the Aditya L1 mission on a 125-day voyage to the Sun. The Aditya L1 will stay in Earth's orbit for 16 days and then following a four months journey, it will be placed on the L1 point in the halo orbit around the Sun.

The solar satellite will observe the Solar corona and conduct in-situ observations of the Solar wind at L1 (Sun-Earth Lagrangian point). The point where the satellite will be placed is around 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth.

It will study the physics of solar corona and its heating mechanism, diagnostics of the coronal and coronal loops plasma, development, dynamics and origin of CMEs and identify the sequence of processes that occur at multiple layers, which eventually leads to solar eruptive events.