As India successfully launched its first Solar mission Aditya-L1, the European Space Agency (ESA) will lend a crucial hand to the Indian Space Research Organisation by offering deep space communication services and aiding ISRO in validating critical new flight dynamics software.
The ESA said that it is impossible to get any scientific data from a spacecraft without ground station support because communication is an essential part of every space mission, according to a report published by the news agency PTI.
Ramesh Chellathurai, ESA Service Manager and ESA Cross-Support Liaison Officer for ISRO said that the agency’s global network of deep space tracking stations and use of internationally recognized technical standards allows them to help their partners track, command, and receive data from their spacecraft almost anywhere in the solar system.
In an official statement, Chellathurai said, “For the Aditya-L1 mission, we are providing support from all three of our 35-metre deep space antennas in Australia, Spain, and Argentina, as well as support from our Kourou station in French Guiana and coordinated support from goon hilly Earth Station in the UK.”
The European Space Agency said that it is also the main provider of ground station services for Aditya-L1 and the ESA stations are supporting the Solar mission from beginning to end, as per PTI reports.
It stated that the support ranges from the critical ‘Launch and Early Orbit Phase’, throughout the journey to L1, and to sending commands to and receiving science data from Aditya-L1 for multiple hours per day over the next two years of routine operations.
The Indian space agency on Saturday launched the country’s ambitious Solar mission, Aditya-L1 eyeing history again after its successful lunar expedition, Chandrayaan-3 on August 23. It successfully completed the first orbit maneuvering exercise on Sunday.
After the completion of the first orbit maneuvering exercise, ISRO will perform the second such exercise on 5th September. A total of five such orbit maneuvering will be performed during the satellite’s revolution around the Earth.
Notably, the Aditya L1 satellite will remain in Earth orbit for 16 days. During these sixteen days, all five earth-bound firing exercises will be conducted for the satellite to gain the required velocity.
After all the scheduled orbit-raising exercises, Aditya L1 will start its journey to the L1 point near the Sun. After reaching the L1 point, the Indian satellite will undergo a trans-Lagrangian1 insertion maneuver, that will start its 110-day-long trajectory to its destination.
For this to happen, Aditya L1 will undergo another maneuver to get injected into the halo orbit near L1. Lagrangian 1 point is the location where the gravitational force exerted by the Earth and the Sun cancel out each other. This will provide stability to the satellite.
(With PTI inputs)
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Updated: 04 Sep 2023, 06:31 AM IST