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NavIC - India's own GPS - Science Feed

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Like the US has GPS (Global Positioning System), Europe has GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), Russia has GLONASS (GLObalnaya NAVigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema) and China has BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, India has its own satellite navigation system called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation). These satellite systems enable Google Maps, Apple Maps etc. to come into play. 

NavIC in hindi means sailor. Earlier, it was known as IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System). It has covering range of the entire Indian Subcontinent region which is above 1500 kms and can be extended beyond it unto 3000 kms. Currently, it uses satellite constellation of 7 and planned to be increased. 

The requirement of NavIC was realized when the US denied request of GPS during Kargil war. Afterwards, this project got approval in 2006 and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) began working on it. 

NavIC has two usage. First is for SPS which stands for Standard Position Service (SPS) and second is Restricted Service (RS).  SPS is for civilian use case where as RS is for strategic use case. 

It has accuracy better than 20 meters and timing of 50 ns. The three of satellites of 7 are in Geostationary Orbit and other 4 are in Geosynchronous Orbit of earth. These satellites have naming convention with IRNSS-1. 

Along with IRNSS, there has been planning of NVS also which are second generation of the IRNSS. 

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