India getting its own GPS soon

The first of the seven satellites, Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), will be launched during the second week of June 2013 giving India its own indigenous air navigation system/Global Positioning System (GPS), which would provide information on location and time in all weather conditions.

The IRNSS-1 will be launched using the polar satellite launch vehicle, PSLV-C22, from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh's launch pad. It will provide two major services, with Standard Positioning Service open for civilian use and Restricted Service, encrypted one, for authorized users (military).

By launching the IRNSS, India will join China and Europe in the mission to create their own version of the USA's GPS. The European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union (EU) are currently working on a 30 satellite Galileo constellation. The global satellite navigation system (GNSS) is slated to be completed by 2020. 

"As of now the IRNSS is a regional system with seven satellites, which would be further expanded into 11 satellites in the coming years," Radhakrishnan said.

The IRNSS system mainly consists of three components, namely, Space Segment (Constellation of Satellites & Signal-In-Space), Ground Segment and User Segment. It will have two types of signals in L5 and S-band center frequency, with the L band center frequency