India launched its first spacecraft dedicated to studying the sun, building on a month of historic successes for the country’s civil space efforts.
The spacecraft, called Aditya-L1, launched from Sriharikota, an island off the Bay of Bengal, at 11:50 a.m. Saturday local time (2:20 am ET). And it’s headed to a parking spot in orbit about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth.
The successful liftoff of Aditya-L1 comes less than two weeks after India’s space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization, made history by landing its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the lunar surface.
The achievement made India only the fourth nation in the world — and the second in the 21st century — to land a vehicle safely on the moon.
That mission is expected to conclude next week.
Meanwhile, Aditya-L1 is heading for its destination at Lagrange point 1, an area that lies between the sun and Earth where the gravitational pull of both celestial objects cancel each other out. That location will allow Aditya-L1 to remain in orbit, in a position optimal for observing the sun’s activities, with minor fuel consumption.
