The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launched their GSLV-F15 carrying the NVS-02 at 6:23 am at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. This is ISRO’s 100th launch from the country’s spaceport.
GSLV-F15 is the 17th flight of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and the 11th flight with the Indigenous Cryo stage. It is the 8th operational flight of GSLV with an indigenous Cryogenic stage. GSLV-F15 payload fairing is a metallic version with a diameter of 3.4 meters.
The GSLV-F15, with an indigenous Cryogenic stage, will place the NVS-02 satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, ISRO said in a statement.
Multiple students were given the opportunity to witness the launch near the launchpad itself, with their excitement barely contained to be part of such an opportunity.
Teerth, from Gujarat, told ANI, “I came from my college to witness the 100th launch, I am really excited. ISRO is not launching various foreign countries’ satellite, so we are generating income from that also, so it is a really impressive step from the Indian government and ISRO.”
Another student, Avinash, from Bihar, told ANI that it was his first time witnessing a launch. “Really excited about it, we are here to witness the take off. All the best to the scientists and anyone else who have worked on this. We are really excited for this, this is the first time I get to witness this, we had been trying for four years to witness this and finally we got the chance,” the student said.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Director of Space Applications Centre (SAC)/ISRO Nilesh Desai mentioned that the launch would help update India’s Regional Navigation Satellite System from 4 to 5 satellites.
Desai said, “We are going to launch at 6:23 am this GSLV-F-15 mission which will carry the NVS-02 satellite into orbit. Finally, it will be put in the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometres and it will increase the number of satellites of our navigation constellation from 4 to 5 and that will improve the overall accuracy of the positioning which we get from this navigation satellite.”
The satellite constellation of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) will have a total of 7 satellites which will be up in space. With the 100th launch, India now has 5 out of the 7 in space.
“This is the 5th in the series of operational NavIC satellites. NavIC satellite is our earlier named IRNSS satellite configuration which is called the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, it is a part of this satellite constellation where we will put seven satellites. Older satellites are getting replaced with a new series of satellites,” Desai added.
Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) is India’s independent regional navigation satellite system designed to provide accurate Position, Velocity and Timing (PVT) service to users in India as well as to regions extending about 1500 km beyond Indian land mass.
NavIC will provide two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS). NavIC’s SPS provides a position accuracy of better than 20 m and timing accuracy of better than 40 nanoseconds over the service area.
(With inputs from ANI)
