The Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA) payload on board the Aditya-L1 Mission remains healthy and the scientific data sent by it “are of very good quality,’‘ the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) said on Tuesday.
“The preliminary analysis shows that PAPA science data are of very good quality and the results match similar observations made by other instruments which are being operated at or around Lagrangian point L-1 by other space agencies,” the VSSC said.
One among seven
PAPA is one of seven scientific payloads aboard the 1,480-kg Aditya-L1, the solar probe of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) which was inserted into a halo orbit at L1 on January 6. Developed by the Space Physics Laboratory (SPL) at the VSSC, it is designed to study the composition of solar wind and its energy distribution continuously throughout the mission’s lifetime.
“It is a unique payload. It is the first time that we developed a payload operating on a high voltage. Our scientists had faced several challenges in the payload’s development but resolved them successfully. The payload will provide valuable inputs to our understanding of the solar wind,” VSSC Director S. Unnikrishnan Nair said.
PAPA contains two sensors; the Solar Wind Electron Energy Probe (SWEEP), which measures the solar wind electron flux, and the Solar Wind Ion Composition AnalyseR (SWICAR), which measures ion flux and composition as a function of direction and energy. ISRO expects PAPA to yield a better understanding of solar wind as well as the workings of the sun itself.
In September 2023
The Aditya-L1 mission was launched aboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C57 mission on September 2, 2023. As Aditya traversed the 1.5 million km distance to L1, the PAPA payload was switched on for the first time on November 8.
The high voltage (HV) commissioning of the payload and science data observations were started on December 11. Verification of data from the payload carried out after the Halo orbit insertion on January 6, 2024, also had proved satisfactory, according to the VSSC.
