Opinion Express View on ISRO’s Mission Aditya: Chasing the Sun

Having planted its feet firmly on the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is now headed towards the Sun. The Aditya-L1 Mission, ISRO’s first to study the Sun, begins its journey later this week. It is the first time that ISRO is sending out back-to-back space exploration missions. But it was not designed to be this way. Aditya-L1 mission has been in the works for more than 15 years now. The ISRO had started preparing for it around the time it was giving shape to the Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008. Aditya-L1 would have always followed the Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan series of Orbiters whose success was essential to validate a number of technologies that could be used in future, more ambitious, space missions. The development of sub-systems and instruments, many of them very different from what can be put on a Moon mission, for example, also took time. But now that it has come, it appears there could have not been a better time for its launch. A mission to study the Sun seems like a logical follow-up to the success of the Moon landing.

Unlike the rush to the Moon, there have been very few missions to the Sun. There are inherent difficulties in going anywhere near the Sun. The Aditya-L1 mission, for example, would be stationed at a place that is just one per cent of the distance of the Sun from the Earth. That is one of the most favoured locations to study the Sun, though missions like the Solar Orbiter of the European Space Agency have ventured much closer to the Sun. As of now, studying the Sun is a purely scientific endeavour, unlike the current round of Moon missions which are focused on exploring opportunities for resource utilisation and extraction, and setting up facilities for longer term stays. Of course, a better understanding of explosive processes happening within the Sun can potentially result in early warning systems for solar eruptions that threaten space-based assets like communication or navigation systems. The study of the Sun can give insights about the processes happening inside other stars as well. By joining this kind of scientific research, the ISRO is also sending out a signal that it has the technology and maturity — and also the resources and expertise — to contribute to every aspect of planetary science.

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With Aditya-L1, the ISRO would be travelling much further in space, 1.5 million kilometres, than it did with Chandrayaan-3 whose destination was barely 4 lakh km from Earth. Of course, the Mangalyaan Orbiter went much deeper, nearly 200 million km in a different direction. For ISRO, these are only the beginnings. Many more great journeys await.