By Shreyanka Nandan
The launch of a Navigation satellite onboard a GSLV rocket- from the spaceport, and the 27-hours countdown commenced from Tuesday, as PTI has reported citing the sources in the space agency. This will be the first and historic mission for ISRO under the leadership of ISRO Chairman V.Narayanan, which may add one feather to the crown of India.
The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with indigenous Cryogenic upper stage in its 17th flight, carrying the navigation satellite NVS-02 is scheduled for lift-off at 6:23 am on January 29 from the second launch pad here.
The navigation satellite is the second in the series of the Navigation with Indian Constellation(NavIC) aimed to provide accurate position, velocity and timing to users in the Indian sub-continent as well as to regions about 1,500 km beyond the Indian landmass.
GSLV-F12 was followed by the GSLV-F15, which was 50.9 meters tall and carried out the second generation navigation satellite NVS-01 into the orbit on May 29,2023.
The NavIC comprises of five second generation satellites- NVS-01/02/03/04/05 envisaged to argument NavIC base layer constellation with enhanced features for ensuring continuity of services.
“The key applications the satellite would be used for are terrestrial, aerial and maritime navigation, precision agriculture, fleet management, location based services in mobile devices, orbit determination for satellites, Internet-of-Things (IoT) based applications, emergency and timing services,” ISRO said.
The U R Satellite Centre designed and developed the NVS-02 satellite that weighs about 2,250 kg. It has navigation payload in L1,L5 and S bands in the addition to ranging payload in C-band live its predecessor NVS-01.
At UR Satellite Centre (URSC) the satellite NVS-02 was designed, developed and integrated with the support of the other satellite-based work centres. On completion of Assembly and Integrated Tasting (ATI), the satellite was subjected to satellite level thermovac test to verify December 2024. The satellite underwent dynamic test during December 2024 thus confirming its suitability to withstand the dynamic loads anticipated during launch.
The satellite launch was flagged off to SDSC-SHAR, the launch port of India of January 5, 2025. A comprehensive pre-shipment review (PSR) of the performance and compliance of the satellite during various phases of its realisation with completed on December 27, 2024.