ISRO's new navigation satellite will launch in less than 54 hours

Like we told you yesterday, ISRO has planned to launch India’s sixth navigation satellite into space from the spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, and for that, the 54-hour countdown began at 9:30 AM today.

As per ISRO statement, the countdown began after the Mission Readiness Review committee and Launch Authorisation Board cleared the 54 and half hour countdown.

The satellite, called IRNSS-1F will be launched from the second launch pad situated at Satish Dhawan Space Centre on March 10.
IRNSS-1F is the sixth navigation satellite in the IRNSS space system, which comprises of seven satellites. These satellites would be on par with US-based GPS after the full complement of spacecraft.

Even though four satellites are sufficient to start operations of the IRNSS system, the remaining three would be deployed to make it more "accurate and efficient".

The last satellite, fifth IRNSS-1E was launched on January 20 2016. The other four, IRNSS-1A was launched on July 1, 2013; IRNSS-1B on April 4, 2014; IRNSS-1C on October 16, 2014; and IRNSS-1D was launched on March 28, 2015.

As per the plan of ISRO scientists, all seven navigation satellites will be put into orbit by March 2016, with the seventh in the series expected to be launched by the end of this month.

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