Isro launches indigenous navigation satellite

India’s space research programme moved another step forward on Thursday by successfully launching its third navigation satellite, IRNSS-1C, from the Sriharikota spaceport.

The satellite was successfully put into orbit 20 minutes after the launch at 1:32 am from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, about 100 km north of Chennai.

The successful launch, the third in the series of seven satellites planned by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to put in place India's own navigation system on par with US global positioning system, was earlier scheduled for October 10. “Third navigation satellite is up in the orbit. Our PSLV has done it again...this is the 28th flight of our PSLV and the seventh flight of the XL (extended) version,” Isro chairman Radhakrishnan said after the launch. “The injection (of the satellite) has been very precise,” Radhakrishnan said and congratulated the entire Isro team involved in the process.

Isro’s most trusted rocket and workhorse launch vehicle PSLV-C26 carried the IRNSS satellite, an independent regional navigation satellite system, designed to provide accurate position information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to 1,500 km from its boundary.

This is the seventh time the Isro will be using the “XL” configuration, the earlier six being PSLV-C11/Chandrayaan-1, PSLV-C17/GSAT-12, PSLV-C19/RISAT-1, PSLV-C22/IRNSS-1A, PSLV-C25/Mars Orbiter Mission and PSLV-C24/IRNSS-1B missions.

With a lift off mass of 320 tonne, the 44 metre tall PSLV-C26 uses solid propellants in the first and third stages and liquid propellants in the second and fourth stage.

The IRNSS-1C was then put into a sub-Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (sub GTO) with a 284 km perigee (nearest point to earth) and 20,650 km apogee (farthest point to earth) with a inclination of 17.86 deg with respect to the equatorial plane.

IRNSS-1C is one of the seven satellites of IRNSS space segment and its predecessors IRNSS-1A and IRNSS-1B which were launched in July 2013 and April 2014 respectively.
The configuration of IRNSS-1C, which was realised in less than six months after the launch of its predecessor, was similar to that of IRNSS-1A and IRNSS-1B.