Say Goodbye to GPS! India’s all set to Switch to the indigenously developed Navigation System, IRNSS.

It’s time we move away from the American Global Positioning System (GPS) and make way for our own desi navigation system — IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) on our mobile phones or handheld gadgets.

The well-known GPS is owned by the U.S. Air Force (24 satellites); Russia has GLONASS (24 satellites), Galileo of Europe (27 satellites) and China’s Beidou (35 satellites). Whereas, IRNSS is comprising of just 07 satellites in space. (However, other systems are mostly global ad IRNSS is regional only).

According to ISRO officials only Four satellites would be sufficient to start operations of the IRNSS system, the remaining Three would make it “more accurate and efficient”. It is expected to provide position accuracy of better than 20 m over Indian region and also an area extending up to 1,500 sq. km around India; which is more precise than American GPS.

According to ISRO officials total cost of all the project is expected to be Rs. 1,420 Crore.

The First of the Seven satellites of the IRNSS constellation, was launched on 01 July 2013. And the Seventh is launched on 28 April 2016. IRNSS is expected to be fully functional to operate during Diwali 2016.

Some applications of IRNSS are: Terrestrial, Aerial and Marine Navigation, Disaster Management, Vehicle tracking and fleet management, Integration with mobile phones, Precise Timing Mapping and Geodetic data capture, Terrestrial navigation aid for hikers and travellers, Visual and voice navigation for drivers.

IRNSS is a result of 17 years of rigorous work by Indian space scientists. The requirement of such a navigation system is driven because access to foreign government-controlled global navigation satellite systems is not guaranteed in hostile situations, as happened to the Indian military depending on American GPS during the Kargil War. India took a firm decision on IRNSS in 1999 after US government refused to share GPS data that would provide vital information on Pakistani troop’s position during Kargil war.

And now with IRNSS India does not need to depend upon other platforms.

Salute to the real heroes of ISRO !!

 R Patkar