In a midnight launch, India’s workhorse 44-metres tall Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) blasted off in a perfect textbook launch at 11.41 pm on the night of 1 July 2013 carrying the indigenous IRNSS-1A from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. It makes us proud of our space scientists. Their previous attempt had unfortunately failed because of technical snag, which has been removed. With this achievement, India is set to be in line with a select group of advanced nations in successfully launching its first dedicated navigation satellite IRNSS-IA. This achievement will generate space center’s capability of putting into orbit seven satellites constituting the IRNSS space segment with three of them in geo-stationary orbit and four in inclined geo-synchronous orbit. Once these launches are completed, the country will have the alternative to US GPS. The next satellite of the series IRNSS-1B is due for launch early 2014. The full constellation of seven satellites is supposed to be in orbit by 2015 and only then will the service of the IRNSS system take off.
The country is proud of the achievements of our scientists. The objective is to become self-sufficient and to provide indigenous technology for the development of the country. The IRNSS series are designed to upgrade our navigational operations and communication system. Provided right atmosphere and incentives our scientists have the capacity of carrying the country forward to match the advanced nations. This is a matter of pride. There are still many more scientific and technological fields in which we have to show our ingenuity. The new generation of Indian scientists is a promising generation and the nation expects a lot from them. We are confident they will bring honour and distinction to the country.
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