Unraveling the Secrets of the lower Solar Atmosphere: One year of Operation of the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) on board Aditya-L1

TL;DR

The paper details the first year of operation of India's SUIT instrument on Aditya-L1, highlighting its functions, calibration, operations, and initial solar observations in ultraviolet wavelengths.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of SUIT's design, calibration routines, operational procedures, and initial scientific observations during its first year in space.

Findings

Successful calibration and operation of SUIT in space.

Achievement of key science goals including solar atmosphere imaging.

Initial observations reveal new insights into solar UV phenomena.

Abstract

The Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) is an instrument onboard Aditya--L1, the first solar space observatory of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India, launched on September 2, 2023. SUIT is designed to image the Sun in the 200--400 nm wavelength band in eight narrowband and three broadband filters. SUIT's science goals start with observing the solar atmosphere and large-scale continuum variations, the physics of solar flares in the NUV region, and many more. The paper elucidates the functioning of the instrument, software packages developed for easier calibration, analysis, and feedback, calibration routines, and the regular maintenance activity of SUIT during the first year of its operation. The paper also presents the various operations undergone by, numerous program sequences orchestrated to achieve the science requirements, and highlights some remarkable observations made during the first year of observations with SUIT.