India is building a ‘space observatory’ — a spacecraft that will be peering at the Sun all the time.

ISRO’s Aditya L-1 mission is the Indian space agency’s most complex mission ever and it is scheduled to be launched by the end of August or early September. India is constructing a “space observatory” for the first time, a spacecraft that will continuously scan the Sun, observing the ball of fire around the clock.

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A Lagrange point is a position between two or more enormous objects (like the Sun and the Earth) where the huge objects exert equal pull over the spacecraft, causing it to “stay” exactly where it is.

Also read: Chandrayaan-3: ISRO releases images of Lunar far side area captured by Lander camera

India has never placed a spacecraft there. It takes tremendous skill to “steer” a spacecraft into its slot when it is precisely positioned 1.5 million kilometres from Earth (between Earth and the Sun). It’s harder to keep it there.

In this video, Associate Editor M Ramesh explains why this project is unique. Read the full story here.

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