ISRO Deploys NVS-02 Satellite, Enhancing India’s NavIC System

30th Jan 2025
ISRO Deploys NVS-02 Satellite, Enhancing India’s NavIC System

India, on Wednesday morning, successfully orbited a second-generation navigation satellite (NVS-02) to augment its navigation satellite constellation – Navigation with Indian Constellation or NavIC.

India augments navigation satellite constellation orbiting NVS-02

In a copybook style, on 29.1.2025, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) put into orbit the 2,250 kg NVS-02 navigation satellite with its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).

At 6.23 a.m. the 50.9 metre tall and weighing 420.7 ton GSLV rocket blasted off from the second launch pad at Sriharikota spaceport in Southern India with thick orange flame at its tail lighting up the morning skies.

Just over 19 minutes into the flight, NVS-02 was placed into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).at an altitude of 322.93 km wherefrom it will be taken to Geostationary Orbit.

Addressing the gathering at the mission control centre at the rocket port ISRO Chairman Dr. V.Narayanan said: “I am extremely happy to announce the first launch of 2025 was successfully accomplished.”

Narayanan said the NVS-02 satellite was placed in its intended orbit with a very minimal level of dispersal.

As regards the milestone of 100th rocket launch from Sriharikota rocket port Narayanan said till date India has developed six rockets and cumulatively they have lifted 548 satellites, weighing 120 tons including 433 foreign satellites that weighed 23 tons.

A New Chapter for India’s Navigation System

The NVS-02 is a replacement for the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System -1E (IRNSS-1E) satellite – part of the first-generation satellite series.

The NavIC provides accurate Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services to the users in India and to the region extending about 1,500 km beyond the country’s land mass.

Currently NavIC provides two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS).

NavIC’s SPS provides a position accuracy of better than 20 metres and timing accuracy better than 40 ns (nano seconds), ISRO said.

Five second generation NavIC satellites will augment NavIC’s base layer constellation with enhanced features for ensuring continuity of services, ISRO said.

ISRO Chairman Narayanan said the NavIC system  is evolving with the first batch of IRNSS being successful.

Speaking to this correspondent prior to his retirement as ISRO Chairman this month Dr.S.Somanath said: “NVS series consists of five satellites and will work along with earlier ones in L5 and S band. The L1 band is only in NVS-01 and 02. A minimum of four satellites are needed to get a navigation solution at any time and more to improve accuracy. In the future we have to increase the size of the constellation to nine to extend range.”

Somanath said the next three NVS satellites will be launched one each at a six months interval and the life span of each satellite will be 10-15 years if electronics don’t fail.

Advanced L1 Band Signals and Indigenous Atomic Clocks

The NVS series of satellites incorporates L1 band signals additionally to widen the services and increase the NavIC’s adoption rate. The L1 signals offer better location based services in the consumer segment.

One of the spin-off benefits of the IRNSS is the indigenous development of atomic clocks by India, a shining example of the Make in India programme, Narayanan said.

With the imported clocks failing in some of the IRNSS satellites, India decided to develop its own atomic clocks saving about Rs.3 crore per satellite.

Each IRNSS satellite carried three atomic clocks.

The first of the second generation NavIC NVS-01 was orbited on May 29, 2023 by GSLV-F12 rocket with Indian atomic clock.

“For the last five years no failures were seen after we suggested and implemented corrections in them. ISRO clocks will be the primary in all the NVS satellite series,” Somanath had said.

The NVS-02 uses a combination of indigenous and procured atomic clocks for precise time estimation and both are compatible providing similar timing solutions, Somanath added.

According to ISRO, the NVS-02 satellite is configured with navigation payload in L1 (primary frequency band used by satellite constellations), L5 (used for high precision services) and S (commonly used in satellites) bands in addition to ranging payload in C-band like its predecessor-NVS-01.

Out of the seven IRNSS satellites that were orbited earlier, four are functional providing Position, Navigation and Timing service and the remaining ones offer safety-of-life messaging services.

The full constellation of seven satellites is expected to be completed in the coming years, Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State, Personnel, Public Grievances Pensions and in the Prime Minister’s Office told the Parliament.

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