7-Jul-2022: Aditya-L1 Science Support Cell exposes students to processes happening on the Sun, Aditya-L1 mission & observational data analysis

Students from institutions and universities across India were exposed to the basic processes happening on the Sun, Aditya-L1 mission, and observational data analysis, as well as the current open problems that young researchers on the subject can address, at a workshop conducted by the Aditya-L1 Science Support Cell (AL1SSC).

“This workshop will help in developing the next generation of solar physicists spread across various institutes and universities in India. It can train younger people from the university sector so that the user community can grow with time and would promote utilisation of data from Aditya L1 by a large number of students and scientists across India,” said Prof. Dipankar Banerjee, Director, Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES). 

The workshop from 27th June to 6th July 2022 by AL1SSC, a joint effort of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and ARIES, Nainital, an autonomous institute under the Dept. of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India, is a part of the activities commemorating ‘75 years of India's Independence: Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ at ARIES.

It covered talks and demo sessions on topics such as the sun, observation techniques, the Aditya-L1 mission, statistical & AI/ML techniques, and data analysis techniques by experts in solar physics from various institutes in India.

AL1SSC will be organising more such workshops before and after the launch of Aditya-L1 mission so that the scientific data can be explored by a larger community leading to the exciting scientific outcomes.

The Aditya-L1 mission is India's first dedicated spacecraft mission to study the Sun. It will enable a comprehensive understanding of the dynamical processes of the Sun and address some of the outstanding problems in solar physics and heliophysics. AL1SSC has been set up to act as a community service centre for the guest observers in preparing science observing proposals and analyzing science data. This support cell provides tools and documentations required to understand, download and analyse the data.

27-Apr-2021: Community service centre to make data from India’s first solar space mission accessible for analysis

A community service centre has been set up to bring all data on board India’s first dedicated solar space mission to a single web-based interface enabling the users to quickly look at the data and identify the interesting science cases.

The service centre called Aditya-L1 Support Cell (AL1SC), a joint effort of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India will be used by the guest observers in analyzing science data and preparing science observing proposals.

AL1SC set up at the transit campus of ARIES at Haldwani, Uttarakhand, will jointly work with ISRO to maximize utilization of science data from Aditya-L1 and facilitate India’s first dedicated solar space mission- Aditya-L1.

The centre will act as conduit between the users (student and faculty members from research Institutes/ Universities/ Colleges etc.) and payload teams of Aditya-L1 and solar astronomy research community at large. It is slated to develop specific tools to assist guest observers/researchers to prepare observing proposals for Aditya-L1 observations and will assist ISRO with the design and development of the required analysis software for handling scientific data.

The centre will also provide the co-aligned data from other observatories around the world that can complement the data obtained from Aditya-L1 allowing users to accomplish the science goals beyond the capabilities of the Aditya-L1.

Combining data from other observatories will be helpful in building a solar features event knowledgebase which will be the compendium of different solar features seen on the surface of the Sun and in the heliosphere. This knowledge base will be immensely useful for the scientific community in connecting the features in heliosphere to the surface of the Sun.

In addition to this AL1SC will also build capacity by establishing periodic training of the national user community on data analysis and proposal preparation. Short workshops of 2-3 days durations at different locations in India will be held focusing on universities who do not have access for downloading and analyzing the Aditya-L1 data. Further, AL1SC has also planned to schedule frequent E-workshops and tutorials using online platforms.

The centre will expand reach of Aditya-L1 not only within India, but also increase the visibility of the mission at the international level. It will allow every interested individual to be able to perform scientific analysis of the data.

6-May-2019: Aditya - L1 First Indian mission to study the Sun

The Aditya-1 mission was conceived as a 400kg class satellite carrying one payload, the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) and was planned to launch in a 800 km low earth orbit. A Satellite placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/eclipses. Therefore, the Aditya-1 mission has now been revised to “Aditya-L1 mission” and will be inserted in a halo orbit around the L1, which is 1.5 million km from the Earth. The satellite carries additional six payloads with enhanced science scope and objectives.

The project is approved and the satellite will be launched during 2019 – 2020 timeframe by PSLV-XL from Sriharikota.

Aditya-1 was meant to observe only the solar corona.  The outer layers of the Sun, extending to thousands of km above the disc (photosphere) is termed as the corona.  It has a temperature of more than a million degree Kelvin which is much higher than the solar disc temperature of around 6000K. How the corona gets heated to such high temperatures is still an unanswered question in solar physics.

Aditya-L1 with additional experiments can now provide observations of Sun's Corona (soft and hard X-ray, Emission lines in the visible and NIR), Chromosphere (UV) and photosphere (broadband filters). In addition, particle payloads will study the particle flux emanating from the Sun and reaching the L1 orbit, and the magnetometer payload will measure the variation in magnetic field strength at the halo orbit around L1. These payloads have to be placed outside the interference from the Earth’s magnetic field and could not have been useful in the low earth orbit.

The main payload continues to be the coronagraph with improved capabilities. The main optics for this experiment remains the same. The complete list of payloads, their science objective and lead institute for developing the payload is provided below:

• Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC): To study the diagnostic parameters of solar corona and dynamics and origin of Coronal Mass Ejections (3 visible and 1 Infra-Red channels); magnetic field measurement of solar corona down to tens of Gauss – Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA)
• Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT): To image the spatially resolved Solar Photosphere and Chromosphere in near Ultraviolet (200-400 nm) and measure solar irradiance variations - Inter-University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA).
• Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) : To study the variation of solar wind properties as well as its distribution and spectral characteristics – Physical Research Laboratory (PRL).
• Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA) : To understand the composition of solar wind and its energy distribution – Space Physics Laboratory (SPL), VSSC.
• Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS) : To monitor the X-ray flares for studying the heating mechanism of the solar corona – ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC).
• High Energy L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer (HEL1OS): To observe the dynamic events in the solar corona and provide an estimate of the energy used to accelerate the particles during the eruptive events - ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC)and Udaipur Solar Observatory (USO), PRL.
• Magnetometer: To measure the magnitude and nature of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field – Laboratory for Electro-optic Systems (LEOS) and ISAC.

With the inclusion of multiple payloads, this project also provides an opportunity to solar scientists from multiple institutions within the country to participate in space based instrumentation and observations. Thus the enhanced Aditya-L1 project will enable a comprehensive understanding of the dynamical processes of the sun and address some of the outstanding problems in solar physics.