India plans mission to the Sun

India’s Mangalyaan spacecraft is on its way to
Mars, but the county is already planning its next
major space exploration mission.
The country visited the Moon in 2008, and
launched a budget Mars rocket in late 2013. But

its next step is a mission to the Sun, which could
begin as early as 2017.
Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan told the Times of
India that the twelve-million-dollar mission
would be called Aditya-1 , and it will launch
between 2017 and 2020.
While preparations have been made for the
mission since 2008, India’s space agency now
has a clearer picture of what the mission will
involve. Aditya-1 will study coronal mass
ejection events and the parameters that govern
space weather.
Other Indian missions planned include Astrosat
— a project aimed at designing and fabricating a
space telescope, and a second Moon mission —
Chandrayaan-II — which will include a lunar
lander and rover.