India sends new space mission to observe sun after success of moon landing

India’s space agency is taking aim at another milestone with the scheduled launch of a probe to study the sun, a little over a week after its successful unmanned landing on the moon.

Aditya-L 1 is scheduled for launch on Saturday carrying scientific instruments to observe the sun’s outermost layers, blasting off at 11:50am (06:20 GMT) local time for its four month journey.

The mission aims to shed light on the dynamics of several solar phenomena by imaging and measuring particles in the sun’s upper atmosphere.

According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the spacecraft is carrying “seven scientific payloads for systematic study of the sun”, all of which were indigenously developed in collaborations between India’s space agency and scientific institutes.

(Aljazeera)