The 27-hour countdown began on Tuesday for ISRO's historic 100th mission—the launch of a Navigation satellite onboard a GSLV rocket—from the spaceport, sources in the space agency confirmed. This will also be the first mission for ISRO Chairman V Narayanan, who took office on January 13.
The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), equipped with an indigenous Cryogenic upper stage, will carry the NVS-02 navigation satellite on its 17th flight, scheduled for lift-off at 6:23 am on January 29 from the second launch pad at the spaceport.
The navigation satellite is the second in the Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) series, aimed at providing accurate positioning, velocity, and timing information to users across the Indian sub-continent, as well as regions up to 1,500 km beyond the Indian landmass.
"The 27.30-hour countdown commenced at 02:53 am on Tuesday," multiple sources said.
The 50.9-metre-tall GSLV-F15 follows the GSLV-F12 mission, which successfully launched the NVS-01 navigation satellite, the first of the second-generation satellites, on May 29, 2023.
NavIC consists of five second-generation satellites—NVS-01, NVS-02, NVS-03, NVS-04, and NVS-05—which aim to enhance the NavIC base-layer constellation, ensuring continuity of services with improved features.
The NVS-02 satellite, designed and developed by the U R Satellite Centre, weighs approximately 2,250 kg. It carries navigation payloads in the L1, L5, and S bands, in addition to a ranging payload in the C-band, similar to its predecessor, NVS-01.
The satellite's key applications include terrestrial, aerial, and maritime navigation, precision agriculture, fleet management, location-based services on mobile devices, orbit determination for satellites, Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based applications, as well as emergency and timing services, ISRO said.
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