India to launch first navigational satellite on June 12

Bangalore: India proposes to launch its first navigational satellite, which will provide terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation services and help in disaster and fleet management, on June 12. The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System-1A is slated to be launched on board home-grown rocket, PSLV-C22 XL at 1.01 am from Sriharikota spaceport on June 12.

The launch window will be open from June 10 to June 15, sources in the Indian Space Research Organisation here said. The 1425 kg IRNSS-1, which will have a life span of about ten years, will provide satellite-based terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation services, and also help in disaster and fleet management and vehicle tracking, an ISRO official said. Bangalore-headquartered ISRO has planned to have a constellation of seven satellites under IRNSS by 2014-15. IRNSS is an independent regional navigation satellite system, and once all the spacecraft become operational, it would provide position accuracy, similar to Global Positioning System (GPS), of better than 10 metres over India and the region extending about 1,500 km around the country. "It is designed to provide an accurate real time Position, Navigation and Time (PNT) services to users on a variety of platforms with 24x7 service availability under all weather conditions", the official said. IRNSS provides two basic services -- standard positioning service for common civilian users and restricted service for special authorised users, the official said. PTI