ISRO will launch three navigation satellites for its Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) by next year, according to a reply in Parliament by the Union MoS for Space Dr Jitendra Singh.
The first of the three, NVS-03, is scheduled to be launched by year-end. The other two, NVS-04 and NVS-05, will be launched after that “with a gap of six months,” as per data.
Only four of India’s seven satellite navigation systems continue to provide location data, the reply said. The IRNSS was envisioned as a seven-satellite constellation that could provide navigation services over the Indian landmass and a radius of 1,500km around it.
So far, 11 satellites have been launched for the IRNSS constellation. Of these, two failed to reach the intended orbit. In what was ISRO’s 100th launch, NVS-02 was sent to space in January this year, but the further orbit raising manoeuvres needed to put the satellite in the proper orbit could not be completed because of a technical glitch.
The other IRNSS-1H satellite was lost in 2017 when heat shield did not open for the deployment of the satellite. While one of the satellites was decommissioned after end of its mission life, four others are in use only for one-way message broadcast like the ones used by government for providing info during a natural disaster.
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