India launches dedicated navigation satellite, joins select club
In a landmark journey into a new era of space application, India
The country’s workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) blasted off with the IRNSS-1A satellite, which it placed in orbit a little later.
“IRNSS-1A, first of the seven satellites, constituting the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) space segment, was launched at a cost of approximately 125 crore,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said after the launch.
Consisting of a space segment and a ground segment, IRNSS has three satellites in geostationary orbit and four satellites in inclined geosynchronous orbit and is to be completed before 2015. Over 300 crore is earmarked for the ground segment and almost all the satellites would cost 125 crore, since all of them would most probably be identical, he said. The launch was “very precise” he said, adding that when the target of apogee was aimed at 20,650 km plus or minus 750 km, the rocket achieved an apogee of 20,625 km.
IRNSS will have a network of twenty one ranging stations geographically distributed across the country and will be wholly controlled by the Indian Deep Space Network at Byalalu, near Bangalore.
The satellites will be equipped with high precision atomic clocks to continuously transmit navigational signals. The satellites have put India in a unique club of the U.S. , China
This is the fourth time that an XL configuration has been flown, earlier satellites under the configuration were Chandrayaan, PSLV C11,17,19,GSAT 12 and RISAT 1. The satellite will provide accurate information of tracking vehicles on land, air and water. The applications in the satellite can also provide data on disaster management, guiding hikers and travellers and also voice navigation for divers.
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