Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched next-generation navigational satellite with GSLV rocket from Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota on Monday with an aim to get real-time positioning and timing services.
The satellite would provide real-time positioning and timing services over India and a region approximately 1,500 km around the mainland.
According to ISRO, NVS-01 is the first of the second-generation satellites envisaged for the Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) services. NVS series of satellites will sustain and augment the NavIC with enhanced features.
This series incorporates L1 band signals additionally to widen the services. For the first time, an indigenous atomic clock will be flown in NVS-01.
The 51.7 metre tall Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, on its 15th flight, carried the navigation satellite NVS-01 weighing 2,232 kg.
After a flight of about 19 minutes, the NVS-O1 satellite was injected precisely into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. Subsequent orbit-raising manoeuvres will take NVS-01 into the intended Geosynchronous orbit, ISRO further added.
Nearly after 20 minutes of flight, the rocket is scheduled to deploy the satellite in a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) at an altitude of about 251 km, ISRO said.
The NVS-01 carries navigation payloads L1, L5 and S bands and in comparison to the previous one, the second-generation satellite series would also carry an indigeneously developed Rubidium atomic clock.
The NavIC series include features like terrestrial, aerial and maritime navigation, precision agriculture, location-based services in mobile devices and marine fisheries, among many others.
This mission is the sixth operational flight of the GSLV with indigenous cryogenic stage. The mission life of NVS-01 is expected to be better than 12 years, ISRO said.
