Sankarasubramanian named Principal Scientist of ISRO's Aditya-L1 mission

The Indian Space Research Organisation on Wednesday said Sankarasubramanian K has been designated as the Principal Scientist of the Aditya-L1 mission. Aditya-L1 is the first observatory-class space-based solar mission from India.

"The spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit around the first Lagrange point, L1, of the Sun-Earth system," the Bengaluru-headquartered national space agency said in a statement.

A satellite around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the sun without occultation/eclipses, it was noted.


This position provides a greater advantage of observing solar activities continuously, ISRO pointed out.

Aditya-L1 carries seven payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere, and the outermost layers of the sun (the corona) using electromagnetic and particle detectors.

Four payloads directly view the sun from the unique vantage point of L1, and the remaining three payloads carry out in-situ studies of particles and fields at the Lagrange point L1.

Sankarasubramanian is a senior solar scientist at the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Bengaluru.

He obtained his PhD in Physics from Bangalore University through the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru.

His research areas of interest are the Solar Magnetic field, Optics, and Instrumentation.

Sankarasubramanian has contributed to AstroSat, Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2 missions of ISRO in several capacities.

Currently, he is heading the Space Astronomy Group (SAG) of URSC. SAG is involved in developing scientific payloads for the upcoming missions of Aditya-L1, XPoSat, and science payload onboard the Chandrayaan-3 propulsion module.

He is also the Principal Investigator for one of the X-ray payloads onboard Aditya-L1.

Sankarasubramanian also heads the Aditya-L1 Science Working Group, which has members from several institutes of India engaged in solar science research, the statement said.