ISRO's next big target: First Indian solar mission, Aditya L1, launch likely in 2020

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch its first solar mission, named Aditya L1. The objective of the mission, as of now, is a detailed study of the the Sun from an orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point 1 (L1) which is about 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth.

While the Aditya L1 will be closely observing the photosphere, chromosphere, the outermost layers of the Sun and the corona in different wavebands, the spacecraft will carry seven payloads in it.

Aditya-L1 will be an outcome of participation of many renowned national institutions, including the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in Bengaluru, which is the lead institute for the development of Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), and Pune is developing the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUIT) payload for Aditya-L1 mission.