After the Chandrayaan-I moon odyssey, it's "Mission Sun" for team ISRO.Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation are in an advanced stage of designing a spacecraft named “Aditya” to study the outermost region of the sun called corona.Activities towards 'Aditya mission' have been initiated with the involvement of scientists from ISRO centres and prime national research institutes in the country.
Aditya would be the first attempt by the Indian scientific community to unravel the mysteries associated with coronal heating, coronal mass ejections and the associated space weather processes and the study of these would provide important information on the solar activity conditions.
The temperature of the solar corona goes beyond a million degrees. From the earth, the corona can be seen only during total solar eclipses, mainly due to the bright solar disc and the scattering of the sunlight by the earth's atmosphere. One has to go beyond the atmosphere to be able to mask the bright solar disc and study the corona.
The time frame for the launch of the Aditya mission is planned to be during the next high solar activity period. However, the exact date/time is not yet confirmed.