India’s maiden solar mission Aditya-L1 likely to be launched on Sept 2

Shifting focus to its next space odyssey after successfully placing a lander on the moon's uncharted south pole, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Saturday said the country's maiden solar mission — Aditya-L1 — will "possibly" be launched on September 2.

Aditya-L1 would be the first space-based Indian observatory to study the sun.

Speaking to ANI barely minutes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to scientists at the Isro's Bengaluru headquarters, Nilesh M Desai, a top space scientist at the agency and the director of Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad, said: "We had planned the 'Aditya-L1' mission to study the sun. The mission is ready for launch. There is a possibility that the spacecraft will be launched on September 2."

ALSO READ:

• New video: Chandrayaan-3 rover Pragyan rolls down to lunar surface from lander