Space Applications Centre

Indigenous Navigation System

The Government has approved in May 2006, a project to implement an Indian Regional Navigation system (IRNSS) in the next 6-7 years. It will consist of a constellation of seven satellites (3 in geo-synchronous and 4 in near geo-synchronous orbit) and a large ground segment.

The independent, indigenously developed IRNSS is expected to provide an absolute position accuracy of better than 20 meter over India. IRNSS system is expected to provide

High accuracy real time position, velocity and time for authorised users on a variety of platforms.
Good accuracy for a single frequency user with the help of Ionospheric corrections.
All weather operation on a 24 hour basis.

Three of the seven satellites in the IRNSS constellation will be placed in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and four in Geo-synchronous Orbits (GSO) inclined at 29° to the equatorial plane. All the seven satellites will have continuous radio visibility with Indian control stations.

IRNSS satellites are configured around a spacecraft bus which is similar to ISRO’s meteorological satellite, Kalpana-1, with a mass of 1,330 kg and its solar panels generating a power of 1,400 Watt. The payload consists of two 40-Watt solid-state power amplifiers, clock management and control unit, frequency generation and modulation unit, a navigation processor and signal generation unit and redundant onboard atomic clocks.