Why is Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) needed? How does it help in navigation? (2018)
IRNSS: NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) is an independent and indigenous regional navigation satellite system developed by India. It is a set of 8 satellites which will be located in suitable orbital slots – geostationary or geosynchronous.
It makes India only the sixth country in the world to have its own navigation system.
This frees India from dependence on other countries for its navigation (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo etc.).
Given that it’s primary service area is India and the region extending up to 1500 km from its boundary, it’s expected to be more accurate (better than 20 m) and reliable. Also, this will help solidify India’s position as a regional power as NavIC will be open for use by India’s neighbours as well.
Further, it will help meet local user requirements of the positioning, navigation and timing services.
Navigation
IRNSS will provide two types of navigation services:
Standard Positioning Service – for all users.
Restricted Service – an encrypted service only for authourised users.
The signals broadcast by IRNSS satellites will transmit navigation service signals (timing and position information) to the users.
This data will be used to give users visual and voice navigation assistance.
These will form the basis for variety of navigation applications:
Land navigation – traffic management, tracking train’s movement, land survey, etc.
Marine navigation – fishermen, merchant ships, port operations, disaster management, etc.
Aerial navigation – civil aviation, military operations, etc.
