India's space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), on Wednesday (Jan 29) achieved the historic milestone of 100 launches from its Sriharikota spaceport after successfully firing the GSLV-F15 rocket carrying the NVS-02 satellite.
The launch happened at 6:23 am (12:53 am GMT) from Sriharikota in the Southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh.
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ISRO celebrates lift-off
Taking to social media platform X, ISRO lauded the "mission success" and announced that the "GSLV-F15/NVS-02 mission has been successfully accomplished."
"India reaches new heights in space navigation!" noted the space agency.
✅ Mission Success!
— ISRO (@isro) January 29, 2025
The GSLV-F15/NVS-02 mission has been successfully accomplished.
India reaches new heights in space navigation! 🌟 #GSLV #NAVIC #ISRO
A series of achievements
With this launch, the GSLV-F15, India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, completed its 17th flight. This also marks the 11th mission which used India's Indigenous Cryo stage. Additionally, this flight marked the 8th operational flight of GSLV with an indigenous Cryogenic stage.
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The GSLV-F15 payload fairing is a metallic version with a 3.4-metre diameter, reports ANI.
📸 Relive the moment! Here are stunning visuals from the GSLV-F15/NVS-02 launch.
— ISRO (@isro) January 29, 2025
A proud milestone for India’s space journey! 🌌 #GSLV #NAVIC #ISRO pic.twitter.com/RK4hXuBZNN
Enhancing India's navigation capabilities
The GSLV-F15 will place the NVS-02 satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, said ISRO. NVS-02 is part of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), also called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation), which aims to provide accurate Position, Velocity, and Timing (PVT) services across India and areas extending up to 1,500 km beyond its landmass.
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"It (NVS-02) will be put in the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometres and it will increase the number of satellites of our navigation constellation from 4 to 5 and that will improve the overall accuracy of the positioning which we get from this navigation satellite," Director of Space Applications Centre (SAC)/ISRO Nilesh Desai said before the launch.
With this launch, India now has five out of the seven satellites planned for the NavIC constellation in orbit.
Watch | ISRO accomplishes milestone 100th rocket launch
"This is the 5th in the series of operational NavIC satellites. NavIC satellite is our earlier named IRNSS satellite configuration which is called the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, it is a part of this satellite constellation where we will put seven satellites. Older satellites are getting replaced with a new series of satellites," added Desai.
The updated system, designed to offer Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS), boasts a position accuracy of better than 20 metres and a timing accuracy of better than 40 nanoseconds.
(With inputs from agencies)