ISRO Marks 100th Rocket Launch with Navigation Satellite Mission

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched the GSLV-F15 carrying the NVS-02 satellite at 6:23 AM from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, marking its 100th rocket mission. This launch also marks the first under ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan, who recently assumed office, and ISRO’s maiden mission of the year.

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Precise Satellite Injection and Mission Success

The satellite was “precisely injected into the required (GTO) orbit,” Mr. Narayanan stated after the successful launch, highlighting the significance of ISRO reaching this milestone.

“In this mission, the data has come in, and all vehicle systems are normal,” he added.

ISRO’s journey began nearly 46 years ago with the launch of the Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) on August 10, 1979. Since then, all major rocket launches from Sriharikota have been conducted by the Indian government.

Ahead of the launch, S. Unnikrishnan Nair, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center in Thiruvananthapuram, assured, “It is as robust as the previous ones. Like every launch, we make it as robust as possible. It will be successful.”

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GSLV: From “Naughty Boy” to Reliable Launcher

This rocket was once dubbed as the ‘naughty boy’ of ISRO since it gave the Indian space agency the worst time of all its menagerie of rockets. Since out of 16 launches so far there have been 6 failures for this rocket, which is a huge 37% failure rate. In comparison India’s latest the Bahuballi rocket the Launch Vehicle Mark -3 has a one hundred percent success rate.

It is also a rocket from the same family where India showed its innate skill of mastering the making of cryogenic engines, a technology the country took two decades to master after the technology transfer of the same was denied to India, by Russia under pressure from USA.

ISRO states GSLV-F15 is the 17th flight of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and 11th flight with indigenous cryogenic stage. It is the 8th operational flight of GSLV with an indigenous cryogenic stage and 100th Launch from the India’s Spaceport Sriharikota. GSLV-F15 payload fairing is a metallic version with a diameter of 3.4 meters.

The GSLV-F15 with indigenous Cryogenic stage will place NVS-02 satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit & the launch will take place from the Second Launch Pad (SLP) at Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

NavIC: India’s Independent Navigation System

Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) is India’s independent regional navigation satellite system designed to provide accurate Position, Velocity and Timing (PVT) service to users in India as well as to region extending about 1500 km beyond Indian land mass.

NavIC will provide two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning Service (SPS) and Restricted Service (RS). NavIC’s SPS provides a position accuracy of better than 20 meters and timing accuracy better than 40 nano seconds over the service area.

India faced several challenges with NavIC, which originated from the country’s difficult experience during the 1999 Kargil conflict with Pakistan. During the conflict, the U.S. denied India access to high-quality Global Positioning System (GPS) data. In response, then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee pledged to develop an indigenous GPS system for India’s strategic needs.

Now on this hundredth launch ISRO hopes that the early challenges posed by the navigation satellites and the rocket are a thing of the past and it hopes to hit the hundredth mark in style.