India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C24), carrying the second navigation satellite of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System IRNSS-1B, lifts off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota yesterday.

India yesterday moved a step closer to setting up its own satellite navigation system when in a copy-book style it successfully placed into orbit a satellite using its own rocket.

With the successful launch of the second of the planned seven satellites under the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), India moved nearer to a select group of nations that have such a space-based system.

President Pranab Mukherjee said the launch was “an important landmark in our space programme and demonstrates, yet again, India’s capabilities in space launch technology”.

“The nation will immensely benefit from the applications of IRNSS which include terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation, disaster management, vehicle tracking and fleet management,” he said.

The Indian rocket carrying the satellite blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, around 80km north of Chennai.

ISRO scientists and the media team assembled at the rocket port here applauded the spectacle.

“The PSLV (polar satellite launch vehicle) in its 25th successive successful flight precisely injected India’s second regional navigaton satellite...this proves again that India’s PSLV has a place of pride,” ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan said post launch. “By 2014 we will launch two more navigational satellites - IRNSS-1C and IRNSS-1D. Three more navigational satellites will be launched early 2015. By middle of 2015, India will have all the navigational satellite system.”

He said the ISRO team will be coming to its spaceport again in June to launch the country’s heavier rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle - Mark III (GSLV-Mk III).

SDSC director M Y S Prasad said: “The launch time has been fixed taking into account the orbit and inclination at which the satellite will be injected into the space.”

 

 

 

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