ISRO to upgrade ‘Indian GPS’, NavIC, to widen user base
Context
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is working on a series of improvements to the NavIC, or India’s equivalent of the Global Positioning System (GPS), so that more people are motivated to install it and use it.
What is NavIC?
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Out of 7 satellites, 3 are geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellites and 4 are geosynchronous orbit (GSO) satellites. |
- NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation), or the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), is a constellation of seven satellites, developed by
- NavIC was originally approved in 2006 at a cost of $174 million. It was expected to be completed by late 2011, but only became operational in 2018.
- Coverage: NavIC covers the whole of India’s landmass and up to 1,500 km (930 miles) from its boundaries.
- Usage: Currently, NavIC’s use is limited. It is being used
- in public vehicle tracking in India
- for providing emergency warning alerts to fishermen venturing into the deep sea where there is no terrestrial network connectivity
- for tracking and providing information related to natural disasters
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