NAVIC

"DAAYE MUDIYE AUR AAP APNI JAGAH POHOCH JAYENGE."(Turn left and you shall reach your destination) said a voice from my GPS system as I was travelling to a new place in India. IMPOSSIBLE!!!!! Right? Not really, because soon this fantasy is going to be a reality. Yes you read it right.

Hello everyone, here I am with my new blog, on a new topic and I guess all my Indian friends know what I am going to talk about in this blog. Guessed right guys, it’s the ‘NAVIC’. NAVIC itself means Sailor or the Navigator. Now some of you might not know what I am talking about and hence this is going to be really special and amazing fact or a fantasy for us Indians which is going to be true. Here we go.

NAVIC – NAVigation with Indian Constellation is an Indian developed Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) that is used to provide accurate real-time positioning and timing services over India and region extending to 1500 km around India. To be simple NAVIC is soon going to replace the conventional GPS system we use in our mobile phones. Thank you ISRO for making us proud again. Let’s see some basic information regarding the same.

Basic Information :-

Country of Origin                       - India

Operator                                     - ISRO ( Indian Space Research Organization )

Type                                           - Military, Commercial

Status                                         - Operational

Coverage                                    - Regional

Total Satellites                           - 9 (7 in orbit 2 on ground as standby)

Orbital height                             - 36,000 km

Cost                                            - Rs.1420 crore/ $212 Million

Weight                                       - 1,330 kg

Solar Panel Power Generation  - 1,400 watts

The 7 deployed satellites of NAVIC contain 3 satellites in GEO orbit and 4 satellites in GSO orbit. A satellite in GEO orbit means that it is having an orbital period or a rotational period and the direction similar to that of the Earth, and thus appears motionless. Whereas a satellite in GSO orbit means the rotational period is same but the direction is different i.e. the object will appear at the same place at the same time, but will disappear later. The requirement of such a navigation system became a necessity because access to foreign government-controlled global navigation satellite systems is not guaranteed in hostile situations, as happened to the Indian military depending on American GPS during Kargil War.

The NAVIC would provide two services, with the Standard Positioning Service open for civilian use, and the Restricted Service for authorized users (including the military). Once the NAVIC is declared operational after checking the systems – space (satellites), ground (ground stations) and the user-end signal receivers, India will formally join a selected group of nations owning their own Navigational Satellite System.

The first of the seven satellites was launched on 1^st July 2013 and the rest is history. These satellites are placed in particular orbit as said to give optimum result and if you see from above it will appear to be moving in the form of an “8”. All this information is what you need to know as a proud Indian citizen. If you want to know more about it, then do visit ISRO’s main site for the same. I hope this blog gave you some knowledge and if so then do not hesitate to like, share and comment on the blog below.

|| JAI HIND ||