Former astronaut and renowned author of ‘The Apollo Murders,’ Chris Hadfield, shared his insights on the significance of India’s solar mission, Aditya-L1, in safeguarding Earth from potentially catastrophic solar events caused by the Sun.
New Delhi: After the historic success of the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, India is ready to embark on a deeper space exploration journey by studying the Sun. Aditya-L1, the country’s maiden solar mission, is set to launch on Saturday. Scheduled for liftoff today from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, this mission represents a significant milestone in India’s space exploration endeavours. As the countdown for the solar mission begins, former International Space Station Commander and renowned author Chris Hadfield has lauded ‘Indian technological prowess,’ emphasizing that people all over the Earth are ‘relying on technology.’
During an interview with news agency ANI former astronaut Chris Hadfield talked about how the findings of the India’s solar mission will impact human space flight. “So when we put something like Aditya L-1 up there in between us and the Sun to sense those things, to better understand how the sun works and the threats that it has to the earth, it’s good for everybody for protecting us as people. But also, of course, our electrical grid, our internet grid, and all of the thousands of satellites that we count on that are up in orbit,” Hadfield stated.
#WATCH | New York: On the budget of India’s Moon Mission (Chandrayaan-3), former Commander of the International Space Station and author of the Apollo Murders, Chris Hadfield says, “It’s really important to put the budget into perspective…If you compare it to everything else… pic.twitter.com/m9fQGXEtvF
— ANI (@ANI) September 1, 2023
He stated that everyone around the globe is pinning their hopes on the data that Aditya-L1 will provide. “Well, everybody on the Earth is counting on technology just to have electricity in their homes and businesses to have communications…We are counting on a really complicated interconnected global electric and data system…it’s really useful information, not just for ISRO and not just for, obviously the Indian space program, but it’s something that is sort of vital space weather for the world,” he said.
The primary objective of India’s solar mission encompass the examination of several key aspects, including the physics of the solar corona and how it is heated, the acceleration of solar wind, the coupling and dynamics within the solar atmosphere, the distribution and temperature anisotropy of solar wind, and the origins of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) and flares, as well as their impact on near-earth space weather.
The atmosphere of the sun, the corona, is what we see during a total solar eclipse. A coronagraph like the VELC is an instrument that cuts out the light from the disk of the sun, and can thus image the much fainter corona at all times, the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics said.
Hadfield also shared his thoughts on the historic success of India’s moon mission – Chandrayaan-3, “strong demonstration of the increased capability of Indian technology.” “It’s quite a historic moment for India and for the world.” He also hailed India’s technological advancement saying, “This example of landing on the moon and sending a probe to the sun or at least to go monitor the sun and getting Indian astronauts ready to fly in space, it provides a really visible example to everybody in India, but to everybody else around the world of just where Indian technological prowess is right now and sort of a hint of everything that’s to come.”
Reacting on the Chandrayaan-3’s budget, he stated, It’s really important to put the budget into perspective…If you compare it to everything else that the Indian government is doing, if you compare it to the amount that’s spent on food distribution or the rest of health and welfare for the Indian people, it is like a 100th of 1% of the whole budget…In comparison to what other countries spend in order to do something similar, it’s one of India’s great strengths as well…It makes them (India) extremely competitive…The inexpensive and successful way that India landed on the Moon, is proof positive for all of those Indian space companies that they can do something as well and for a lot less money than the rest of the world and that is a really good business model.”
Regarding the drive to economically advance space technology and transform it into a profitable space enterprise, the former commander of the International Space Station also expressed that “India holds a strategically advantageous position to achieve this.”
“I think Prime Minister Narendra Modi has seen that for several years. He is very much directly involved with the Indian space and research organization…So it’s a really smart move on India’s leadership’s part right now, to be pushing it, to be developing it, but also being in the process of privatizing it so that the businesses and therefore the Indian people can benefit,” Hadfield told ANI.
The former astronaut has penned the ‘Apollo Murders’, which is slated to release the next instalment of ‘The Defector’ in October.
“My new book is ‘The Defector’, and it comes out October 10. It is a thriller fiction, alternative history fiction. And almost everything that happened in the book is real, but it’s so much fun to weave in a plot in amongst astronauts and test pilots and the space program and the nuclear programme that was going on,” he said.
Aditya-L1
In just a few hours from now, India will launch its maiden solar mission – Aditya-L1 – to the Sun, following its historic achievement of becoming the first country to land near the south pole of the Moon. The spacecraft is scheduled for liftoff at 11:50 am from the Sriharikota spaceport. Aditya L1 is India’s groundbreaking space observatory dedicated exclusively to solar research. Aditya-L1 will carry seven different payloads to have a detailed study of the sun, four of which will observe the light from the sun and the other three will measure in-situ parameters of the plasma and magnetic fields. Its mission is to provide remote observations of the solar corona and collect in situ data on the solar wind at the L1 point, located approximately 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth.