GSLV-F15 carrying NVS-02 navigation satellite lifted off from the second launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 6.23am. Around 19 minutes later, the rocket placed NVS-02 in a 322.93km geosynchronous transfer orbit.
Isro chairman V Narayanan said that the Isro has launched six generation of rockets placing 548 satellites weighing a total 120 tonnes including 23tonnes of 433 foreign satellites. Several significant launch like three Chandrayaan missions, Mars Orbitor Mission, Aditya-L1, 104 satellites in a mission, Navigation and earth observation satellites.
“In the coming days, orbit raising will be performed to place the satellite in its assigned orbit,” he added.
S Unnikrishnan Nair, director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, said, “I am sure we can achieve the 200th mark faster because of the vibrant ecosystem.”
It was GSLV’s 17th flight and 11th flight with an indigenous cryo stage. It was also the eighth operational flight of GSLV with an indigenous cryogenic stage.
NVS-01, the first of the second-generation navigation satellites, was flown with an indigenous atomic clock on May 29, 2023. Like its predecessor, NVS-02 has been configured with navigation payload in L1, L5 and S band in addition to ranging payload in C-band.
The 2250kg NVS-02 will replace IRNSS-1E. NVS-02 uses a combination of indigenous and procured atomic clocks for precise time estimation. The heart of the navigation payload is the Rubidium Atomic Frequency Standard (RAFS), an atomic clock which acts as a stable frequency reference for the navigation payload.
Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) is India’s independent regional navigation satellite system designed to provide accurate position, velocity and timing (PVT) service to users in India as well as in regions extending around 1,500 km beyond Indian land mass.
NavIC will provide two types of services — Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS).
NavIC’s SPS provides a position accuracy of better than 20 metre and timing accuracy of better than 40 nanoseconds over the service area.
Five second-generation NavIC satellites — NVS-01/02/03/04/05 — have been planned to augment the NavIC base layer constellation with enhanced features for ensuring the continuity of services.
The NVS series of satellites incorporate L1 band SPS signals to improve adoption of NavIC services.
The key applications of NavIC include strategic applications, terrestrial, aerial and maritime navigation, precision agriculture, geodetic surveying, fleet management, location-based services in mobile devices, orbit determination for satellites, internet-of-Things (IoT)-based applications, emergency services and timing services.
