With the placement of the fifth navigation satellite in the Earth’s lower orbit on Wednesday, India is on the verge of edging out the USA’s Global Positioning System (GPS) from its airspace, and install its own navigation system.
Within the next few months, people in the subcontinent will be hooked to the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), a constellation of seven satellites parked in geo-stationary and geo-synchronous orbits.
“These satellites will guide people in the Indian subcontinent by giving them their correct location and position,” Indian Space research Organisation Chairman Kiran Kumar said soon after engineers and scientists launched the satellite from the Satish Dhavan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh.
“The day is not far when GPS, owned and operated by the Air Force Space Command of the United States, will make way for the IRNSS, a major achievement as only a select group of nations possess space-based navigation systems,” he said.
The satellite named IRNSS-1E, which weighed 1,425 kg, was deployed into a predetermined orbit by ISRO’s trusted workhorse, the Polar Satellite launch Vehicle (PSlV). The launch vehicle, in its 32nd successive successful mission, deployed the IRNSS-1E as per the plan scripted by ISRO engineers.
The IRNSS-1E joins its predecessors IRNSS-1A, 1B, 1C and 1D, which were launched in 2013, 2014, 2014 and 2015 respectively. The IRNSS will become fully operational once India launches the remaining two satellites being prepared in the ISRO’s fabrication centres.
According to Kiran Kumar, who addressed the nation soon after deployment of IRNSS-1E, these two satellites would be launched soon.
The satellite launched on Wednesday has two payloads for navigation and ranging. The navigation payload will transmit navigation service signals to the users. The ranging payload has a C-band transponder which facilitates accurate determination of the range of the satellite. These instruments would ensure that subscribers get their exact position in their mobile handsets and navigation receiver in their automobile.
Once the seventh satellite of the IRNSS series is launched, all the seven satelites in the IRNSS will be visible in India. Aircraft which are at the mercy of GPS, will get sharper and accurate position and other details through the IRNSS series.
With Wednesday’s PSlV mission , the ISRO has graduated into the big league of launch business. “We are capable of launching a PSlV mission every ,month,” said Jayakumar, PSlV project director. S Somanath, director, liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, responsible for developing the critical components of launch vehicles , said the time required to fabricate, integrate and launch PSlV has been brought to half of what it used to take earlier.