India To Launch Fourth Navigation Satellite On March 9

Currently India is knocking at the door step of an exclusive space club - navigation satellite system owing club - that has the US, Russia, China and Japan as members.

Though the full system comprises of nine satellites - seven in orbit and two on the ground as stand-by - the navigation services could be made operational with four satellites, ISRO officials had said earlier.

Each satellite costs around 150 crore and the PSLV-XL version rocket would cost around 130 crore. The seven rockets would involve an outlay of around 910 crore.

The entire IRNSS constellation of seven satellites is planned to be completed by 2015.

The first satellite IRNSS-1A was launched in July 2013, the second IRNSS-1B in April 2014 and the third one October 16, 2014.

Once the regional navigation system is in place, India need not be dependent on others.

The IRNSS will provide two types of services -- standard positioning service and restricted service. The former is provided to all users and the latter is an encrypted service for authorised users.

The IRNSS system comprises of two segments - the space and the ground. The space segment consists of seven satellites of which three will be in geostationary orbit and four in inclined geosynchronous orbit.

The ground segment consists of infrastructure for controlling, tracking and other facilities.
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