India launched its first space mission to study the sun on Saturday, less than two weeks after a successful uncrewed landing near the south polar region of the moon. The Aditya-L1 spacecraft took off on board a satellite launch vehicle from the Sriharikota space center in southern India on a quest to study the sun from a point about 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from earth. Read : Chandrayaan-3 a glowing testament to what India can achieve with passion: Indian Cabinet The spacecraft is equipped with seven payloads to study the sun's corona, chromosphere, photosphere and solar wind, the Indian Space Research Organization said. India became the first country to land a spacecraft near the moon's south pole on Aug. 23 — a historic voyage to uncharted territory that scientists believe could hold vital reserves of frozen water. After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as only the fourth country to achieve this milestone. The sun study, combined with India's successful moon landing, would completely change the image of ISRO in the world community, said Manish Purohit, a former ISRO scientist. Read : Pakistan vs India 1st ODI in Asia Cup 2023: Match Preview The Aditya-L1 was headed for the L1 point of the Earth-Sun system, which affords an uninterrupted view of the sun, ISRO said. "This will provide a greater advantage of observing solar activities and their effect on space weather in real-time." Once in place, the satellite would provide reliable forewarning of an onslaught of particles and radiation from heightened solar activity that has the potential to knock out power grids on Earth, said B.R. Guruprasad, a space scientist, in an article in The Times of India newspaper. The advanced warning can protect the satellites that are the backbone of global economic structure as well as the people living in space stations. Read : Bangladesh’s development, growing capabilities stood to add value to G20 discussions: India "Those seven payloads are going to study the sun as a star in all the possible spectrum positions that we have visible, ultraviolet, and X-ray. … It's like we're going to get a black and white image, the color image and the high-definition image, 4K image of the sun, so that we don't miss out on anything that is happening on the sun," Purohit said.

The Moon's little-explored South Pole is where India's third lunar mission is eyeing to land a lander and rover on August 23. Also read: Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter detects solar proton events: Space Agency ISRO The lander, Chandrayaan 3, started its final stage of the mission on Thursday when it separated from the propulsion module that had been bringing it near the Moon, reports BBC. Read also: Isro locates Chandrayaan-2 lander on Moon, but yet to make contact However, a Russian spaceship is also voyaging towards the moon’s South Pole, it said. Luna-25 is Russia’s first moon mission since 1976, when the country was a part of the Soviet Union. Also read: India's 3rd lunar mission may spill over to 2021 The Luna-25, which was launched last week, is set to make a soft landing on August 21 or August 22. If Luna-25 succeeds in making the soft landing as scheduled, Chandrayaan-3 will have to settle for being a close second, said the report. However, the much-anticipated Chandrayaan 3’s landing will bring India into the list of nations—the US, the former Soviet Union, and China—that made it to the lunar surface, the report also said. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was launched on July 14 but made several Earth orbits before entering lunar orbit on August 5. Since then, the spacecraft has been circling the Moon in preparation for the landing, said the report. There has been talk of a "mini space race" as both Russian and Indian spacecraft are inching towards history together, it added. The Indian Space Research Organisation, however, is keen to call it a new "meeting point" on the moon rather than a race. "Isro has never been in any race, right from the day one of its inception in the 1960s," an Isro spokesman told the BBC.