THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Aditya-L1 spacecraft, which is on its way towards the Sun, will complete an orbit around the Earth in just three days. After its recent orbital adjustment yesterday, it reached an altitude of 1.21 lakh km above the Earth's surface. It is scheduled to reach its destination, Lagrange Point One, at an altitude of 15 lakh kilometres, by Tuesday.

At approximately two o'clock in the morning yesterday, mission control in Bangalore executed commands to fire the thrusters, raising the spacecraft's orbit. This maneuver placed it in an elliptical orbit, with its closest point at 256 km and the farthest point at 1,21,973 km from the Earth.

This marks the fourth time the probe has been lifted into orbit since its launch on September 2. Aditya-L1, India's first mission to study the Sun, aims to provide valuable insights into the Sun's corona, magnetosphere, and solar flares. Aditya-L1's journey takes it to a location where it can observe the solar system's energy centre without interruption. Its target is a halo orbit around an imaginary point known as Lagrange Point, situated 15 lakh km from Earth. Before reaching this point, the spacecraft will spend 16 days in Earth's orbit, gaining the necessary speed for its onward journey.

At 2 am on September 19, the spacecraft will initiate its departure from Earth's orbit, heading towards the first Lagrange point. This critical step is known as trans-Lagrange point insertion. Subsequently, a 110-day journey will commence. A transportable terminal, set up on the island of Fiji, will oversee the 'post-burn' operations for Aditya-L1.