ISRO’s new NavIC Satellite Launch

Context:

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched the first of the second-generation satellites for its navigation constellation successfully.

About the second-generation satellites:

Satellite Name	NVS-01, the first of ISRO’s NVS series of payloads.
Weight	2,232 kg
Launch Vehicle	Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket
Onboard Technology	Rubidium atomic clock, developed by Space Application Centre-Ahmedabad.
Frequency Signals	It will send signals in a third frequency, L1, besides the L5 and S frequency signals that the existing satellites provide
Mission Life	More than 12 years for second-generation satellites, the existing satellites have a mission life of 10 years.

About Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC):

To meet the positioning, navigation and timing requirements of the nation, ISRO has established a regional navigation satellite system called Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC).
NavIC was erstwhile known as Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).
NavIC is designed with a constellation of 7 satellites and a network of ground stations operating 24 x 7.
Three satellites of the constellation are placed in geostationary orbit, and four satellites are placed in inclined geosynchronous orbit.
The ground network consists of a control centre, precise timing facility, range and integrity monitoring stations, two-way ranging stations, etc.
Each of the seven satellites currently in the named NavIC, weighed much less — around 1,425 kg — at liftoff.
- They all rode the lighter Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), ISRO’s workhorse launch rocket.

Services Offered:

Types of services: Standard Position Service (SPS) for civilian users and Restricted Service (RS) for strategic users.
Frequency bands: These two services are provided in both L5 and S bands.
Coverage: The NavIC coverage area includes India and a region up to 1500 km beyond the Indian boundary.
Accuracy: NavIC signals are designed to provide user position accuracy better than 20m and timing accuracy better than 50ns.
Signals interoperability: NavIC SPS signals are interoperable with the other global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals namely GPS,Glonass,Galileo, and BeiDou.
Constant speed: Unlike GPS, NavIC uses satellites in high geo-stationery orbit — the satellites move at a constant speed relative to Earth, so they are always looking over the same region on Earth.