Sriharikota: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday announced that the countdown for the launch of India's maiden solar mission, Aditya L1 onboard the PSLV, has commenced.
The Sun Observatory mission which comes close on the heels of India's successful moon expedition Chandrayaan-3, is set to be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) Sriharikota spaceport at 11.50 a.m. on Saturday.
ISRO, in an update on X (formerly Twitter), said, PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 Mission: The countdown leading to the launch at 11:50 Hrs. IST on September 2, 2023, has started.
The 23-hour 40-minute countdown commenced at 12:10 pm, it added.
According to ISRO Chairman S Somanath, the mission would take 125 days to reach the exact radius.
Aditya-L1 is designed for providing remote observations of the solar corona and in situ observations of the solar wind at L1 (Sun-Earth Lagrangian point), which is about 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth.
It will be the first dedicated Indian space mission for observations of the Sun to be launched by the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency.
With inputs from PTI