Launch on PSLV-C57
2 Sep 2023 · PSLV · Success
PSLV-XL placed Aditya-L1 in an elongated Earth orbit. As with Mangalyaan, the spacecraft would use its own engine to climb the rest of the way.
Aditya-L1 launched on 2 September 2023 and reached a halo orbit around the Sun–Earth L1 point, about 1.5 million km from Earth, on 6 January 2024. From there it watches the Sun without interruption, studying the corona, solar flares and the solar wind with seven instruments.
From Sriharikota to L1 and the first full orbit around it: 9 moments.
9 milestones from 2023 to 2024: 6 successes, 0 failures, 0 partial successes and 3 other milestones.
L1 is a balance point between the gravity of Earth and the Sun. A spacecraft parked near it keeps pace with Earth around the Sun and has an unblocked view of the Sun all year.
2 Sep 2023 · PSLV · Success
PSLV-XL placed Aditya-L1 in an elongated Earth orbit. As with Mangalyaan, the spacecraft would use its own engine to climb the rest of the way.
3–15 Sep 2023 · Success
Four engine firings over two weeks stretched the orbit further each time, building up the speed needed to leave Earth's neighbourhood.
19 Sep 2023 · Success · Left Earth orbit
The fifth burn sent Aditya-L1 out of Earth orbit on a path towards L1, beginning a cruise of about four months.
30 Sep 2023 · Milestone
About 920,000 km from Earth, Aditya-L1 passed out of the region where Earth's gravity dominates — only the second ISRO spacecraft to do so, after Mangalyaan.
Two small trajectory corrections kept Aditya-L1 on course while its instruments were switched on and tested during the cruise.
5 Oct & 14 Dec 2023 · Success
Two correction burns, on 5 October and 14 December, fine-tuned the path so the spacecraft would arrive at exactly the right point for orbit insertion.
8 Dec 2023 · Milestone
ISRO released the first full-disc pictures of the Sun in ultraviolet light from the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT), taken weeks before arrival at L1.
6 Jan 2024 · Success · India's first solar observatory in place
At about 16:00 IST, a final burn placed Aditya-L1 in a halo orbit around L1 — a looping path about 1.5 million km from Earth that takes about 178 days to complete.
Aditya-L1 carries seven payloads: four look directly at the Sun (including the VELC coronagraph and SUIT), and three measure particles and magnetic fields at L1 itself.
11 Jan 2024 · Success
A 6-metre boom unfolded with two magnetometers, one at 3 m and one at 6 m, to measure the faint magnetic field of interplanetary space while cancelling out the spacecraft's own field.
2 Jul 2024 · Milestone
After station-keeping burns in February and June, Aditya-L1 completed its first full loop around L1 on 2 July 2024, with a third burn keeping it on track for the next.
L1, the first Lagrange point, is a spot about 1.5 million km from Earth towards the Sun where the pull of the two bodies balances out for an orbiting spacecraft. From an orbit around it, Aditya-L1 can watch the Sun continuously without Earth or the Moon getting in the way.
Aditya-L1 was inserted into its halo orbit around L1 at about 16:00 IST on 6 January 2024, about four months after its launch on 2 September 2023.
About 1.5 million km — roughly four times the distance to the Moon, but only about 1% of the distance to the Sun.
The Sun's corona and chromosphere, solar flares, coronal mass ejections and the solar wind. Its seven instruments include a coronagraph (VELC), an ultraviolet telescope (SUIT), X-ray spectrometers, particle analysers and a magnetometer.
Related: Mangalyaan, PSLV, ISRO Missions Timeline.