After moon and sun missions, here are ISRO's upcoming space missions

ISRO is planning a mission to enhance cutting-edge scientific understanding in Astronomy following the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 Moon lander and Aditya-L1 ventures.

XPoSat (X-ray Polarimeter Satellite) is India's first dedicated polarimetry mission, to investigate the dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources under harsh conditions.

In low Earth orbit, the spacecraft will carry two scientific payloads.

POLIX (Polarimeter Instrument in X-rays), the main payload, will measure polarimetry parameters (degree and angle of polarization) in the medium X-ray energy range of 8-30 keV photons of astronomical origin. According to ISRO, the XSPECT (X-ray Spectroscopy and Timing) payload would provide spectroscopic information in the energy range of 0.8-15 keV.

"XPoSat is ready for launch," a national space agency official stated on Saturday. The emission mechanism from various astronomical sources including blackholes, neutron stars, active galactic nuclei, and pulsar wind nebulae, according to ISRO, originates from complex physical processes that are difficult to understand.

The polarimetry measurements add two more dimensions to our understanding, the degree of polarisation and the angle of polarization and thus is an excellent diagnostic tool to understand the emission processes from astronomical sources: ISRO

According to the space agency, the polarimetric observations, along with spectroscopic measurements, are likely to break the degeneracy of numerous theoretical models of astronomical emission processes. This would be the main goal of the XPoSat study by the Indian science community.

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