ISRO’s 100th Launch from Sriharikota

General Studies Paper -3

Context: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its historic 100th launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

About

• GSLV F15 carried the NVS-02 navigation satellite placing it into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.
• The NVS-02 is the second satellite in the NVS series, and part of India’s Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC).
• It is designed to provide accurate positioning services across India.
• GSLV-F15 is the 17th flight of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and 11th flight with Indigenous Cryo stage.
• Over these 100 launches ISRO has lifted 548 satellites to orbit.

NVS Series

• These are five second-generation NavIC satellites — NVS-01 to NVS-05 and are planned to enhance the existing constellation.
• These satellites incorporate L1 band communication, which broadens NavIC’s compatibility and usability for diverse applications.
• NVS-01, the first of the second-generation satellites, was launched in 2023.
• For the first time, an indigenous atomic clock was flown in NVS-01.
• NVS-02 will help improve NavIC’s services, which are used for navigation, precision agriculture, emergency services, fleet management, and even mobile device location services.
• It also has a precise atomic clock called the Rubidium Atomic Frequency Standard (RAFS) for accurate timekeeping.

NavIC

• It is a regional navigation satellite system established by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
• NavIC was erstwhile known as Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).
• NavIC is designed with a constellation of 7 satellites and a network of ground stations operating 24 x 7.
• Three satellites of the constellation are placed in geostationary orbit and four satellites are placed in inclined geosynchronous orbit.
• The ground network consists of a control centre, precise timing facility, range and integrity monitoring stations, two-way ranging stations, etc.
• NavIC offers two services: Standard Position Service (SPS) for civilian users and Restricted Service (RS) for strategic users.
• It provides location accuracy better than 20 meters and timing accuracy better than 40 nanoseconds across the core service area.
• The NavIC coverage area includes India and a region up to 1,500 kmbeyond the Indian boundary.
• NavIC SPS signals are interoperable with the other global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals namely GPS, Glonass, Galileo and BeiDou.

Significance

• The first batch of IRNSS satellites launched in the previous decades has been successful in establishing the Personal Navigation Device (PND) services in the country.
• The NVS series is the second generation of these satellites that are progressively being deployed to further strengthen the PND ecosystem in the nation.
• NVS supports various applications, including strategic uses, vessel tracking, time synchronization, train tracking, and life safety alerts.