Aditya-L1 mission to mark 25th flight of PSLV-XL variant

ISRO’s PSLV-C57 carrying Aditya-L1 spacecraft on the launch pad on the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on September 1, 2023.
| Photo Credit: PTI

For launching its Aditya-L1 mission on September 2, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) can be utilizing a variant of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) which additionally launched India’s first missions to the moon and Mars.

With the PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 mission, India’s first photo voltaic mission, the PSLV-XL variant will mark its 25th flight.

The PSLV-XL is the ‘full configuration’ PSLV, fitted with six strap-on motors, the utmost for this expendable launch car. The XL configuration was first used for launching India’s first lunar probe, the Chandrayaan-1, in October 2008. It has since been used for a number of high-profile missions, together with the Mars Orbiter Mission – Mangalyaan – launched in November 2013.

PSLV flew within the XL configuration final in November 2022, inserting the EOS-06 satellite tv for pc, the principle payload, and eight nano-satellites in orbit across the earth.

Often dubbed ‘ISRO’s trusted workhorse,’ the four-stage PSLV has variants that characteristic six (the XL variant), 4 (QL) and two (DL) rocket strap-on motors to increase the thrust supplied by its first stage. The strap-ons are powered by the strong rocket propellant Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB).

Then there’s additionally the CA (core alone) model the place no strap-on motors are used. The earlier two PSLV missions, the PSLV-C55 and PSLV-C56 which positioned the TeLEOS-2 and DS-SAR satellites in orbit respectively in April and July this yr, had used the CA variant.

The PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 mission is scheduled to elevate off from Sriharikota at 11.50 a.m. on Saturday. The Aditya-L1 spacecraft, which had seven scientific payloads to examine the solar, has a mass of 1,480.7 kg and is India’s first space-based observatory-class photo voltaic mission. After a four-month journey masking 1.5 million km, it will likely be positioned in a halo orbit on the Lagrangian level L1.