Built on ISRO's flight-proven I-1K satellite bus, Aditya-L1 is a compact, roughly 1,500 kg observatory engineered to carry seven instruments to the L1 point and keep them pointed steadily at the Sun for years.
| Full name | Aditya-L1 — India's first solar observatory |
|---|---|
| Operator | Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) |
| Spacecraft bus | ISRO I-1K (I-1000) platform |
| Lift-off mass | ≈ 1,500 kg |
| Science payloads | Seven — four remote-sensing, three in-situ |
| Power | Solar panels feeding an onboard battery |
| Launch vehicle | PSLV-XL (C57) |
| Launch site | Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, India |
| Launch date | 2 September 2023, 11:50 IST |
| Planned mission life | About 5.2 years |
Aditya-L1 does not orbit the Sun or the Earth directly — it loops around an invisible point in space.
At L1, about 1.5 million km from Earth toward the Sun, the two bodies' gravity and the spacecraft's motion balance, letting it keep pace with Earth around the Sun.
The craft traces a large halo orbit around L1, completing one loop in roughly 178 days, so the Sun is never eclipsed from view.
Aditya-L1 stays in contact with ISRO's ground stations across 1.5 million km, with support from ESA's tracking network.
Precise attitude control keeps the telescopes locked on the Sun so instruments like VELC and SUIT can resolve fine solar detail.
Holding the halo orbit needs only about 0.2–4 metres per second of course correction each year — extremely fuel-efficient.