India's first navigation satellite put into orbit

In a landmark late night journey into a new era of space application, India on Monday successfully launched its first dedicated navigation satellite using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle which blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

Precisely at 11.41 pm, India's workhorse PSLV C22 lifted off in a perfect text book launch, carrying IRNSS-1A satellite, painting a dense golden flame in the dark canvas of the sky.

About 20 minutes after its launch, the rocket placed the IRNSS-1A into its orbit. An elated ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan said the IRNSS-1A satellite was precisely injected into its intended orbit. "This only proves that PSLV is an extremely reliable vehicle and with this flight, we are also entering into a new era of space application in the country that is the beginning of satellite navigation programme."

PSLV-C22 is the fourth flight of the ‘XL’ version of PSLV. Earlier, PSLV-XL had earlier  successfully launched Chandrayaan-1, GSAT-12 and RISAT-1 spacecraft into orbit.
PSLV-C22 launched the 1,425 kg IRNSS-1A satellite into a highly oval shaped ‘sub Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit’ that stretches to 284 km on one side of the earth to 20,650 km on the other.  The orbit will be tilted at an angle of 17.86 degrees to the equator. 

IRNSS-1A is the first navigation satellite of India. IRNSS-1A is the first satellite of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). It is one of the seven satellites constituting the IRNSS space segment.  After injection into this preliminary orbit, solar panels of IRNSS-1A were automatically deployed.  Following this, the Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan took control of the satellite.The IRNSS-1A with a mission life of about 10 years was built at ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore.