Explained | One Nation, One Time

India successfully launched into orbit on Wednesday a new navigation satellite aboard a home-grown rocket, strengthening its independent satellite positioning system at a time when space-based technologies are becoming increasingly critical.

The NVS-02 satellite lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota about 6:23 am IST (0053 GMT) aboard the GSLV-F15 rocket, marking the latest step in India's efforts to expand its Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) system.

Designed to provide positioning services over India and surrounding regions, NavIC has been positioned by the country as India's answer to the US Global Positioning System (GPS), China's BeiDou, the European Galileo, and Russia's GLONASS.

The launch, ISRO's 100th, comes as competition in space intensifies, with countries racing to expand satellite networks that power everything from defence operations to smartphone navigation and financial transactions.

The NavIC system was evolving as the backbone of indigenous satellite navigation ecosystem of the Indian region.

"The NVS-02 satellite incorporates the second indigenous Atomic clock, which is a shining example of Make in India in the critical technology development," ISRO chief V Narayanan said.

"Today, many applications based on NavIC, spanning from strategic uses, tracking of shipping vessels, time syncronisation, train tracking and safety of life alert dissemination are accomplished," he said.

What is One Nation One Time?

India currently depends on the US GPS satellites for time measurements. IST is determined by these satellites down to a milisecond and then linked to Coordinated Universal Time (UCT).

Soon, this dependence will end and the NavIC system will start sending time signals to a laboratory in Faridabad. Optical flibre links will be used to transmit these messages to—Ahmedabad, Bhubaneshwar, Bengaluru, and Guwahati—the four regional centres equipped with atomic clocks.

Devices like laptops, digital watches and smartphones will then synchronise their times with these atomic clocks and will not have to depend on GPS-linked service providers.

India wanted to create an indigenous system after the Kargil War, in which accessing location data from foreign satellites proved to be a challenge.

A recent test of the NavIC with these atomic clocks has shown promising results, as per a Times Now report.

Why atomic clocks?

Atomic clocks are those which use resonance frequencies of atoms to determine the time. They are chosen because of their accuracy—atomic clocks lose one second in 100 million years, approximately.

With Reuters, PTI inputs