Aditya-L1 spacecraft has travelled beyond a distance of 9.2 lakh kilometres from Earth, successfully escaping the sphere of Earth’s influence. It is now navigating its path towards the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (L1), says an update on the Aditya-L1 mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

This is the second time in succession that ISRO could send a spacecraft outside the sphere of influence of the Earth, the first time being the Mars Orbiter Mission, ISRO said in X (Twitter).

ISRO, on September 2, launched its Aditya-L1 mission to study the Sun. Aditya-L1 is the first space-based observatory-class Indian solar mission to study the Sun. It had seven distinct payloads developed, all indigenously – five by ISRO and two by Indian academic institutes in collaboration with ISRO.

It will stay approximately 1.5 million km from Earth, directed towards the Sun, about 1 per cent of the Earth-Sun distance. The Sun is a giant sphere of gas, and Aditya-L1 would study the outer atmosphere of the Sun. Aditya-L1 will neither land on the Sun nor approach the Sun any closer.