India to get Satellite Navigation System

India will soon be getting their own satellite based navigation system.

The Indian Regional Navigation system (IRNSS) will consist of a constellation of seven satellites.

Three of the seven satellites in the IRNSS constellation will be placed in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and four in Geo-synchronous Orbits (GSO) inclined at 29° to the equatorial plane. All the seven satellites will have continuous radio visibility with Indian control stations.

Currently only the United States and the Russian Federation have fully deployed Satellite Global Navigation systems although the European Union is currently building it's own - Galileo.

It seems likely in the coming years all large nations and political blocs will wish to have their own GPS systems instead of having to rely on the goodwill of others. The drawback is the amount of frequency spectrum that such systems consume. In the case of Galileo just the E6 channel alone uses 40 MHz of spectrum (1260-1300 MHz).

GPS Daily Story - India To Soon Get Global Navigation System
http://www.gpsdaily.com/reports/India_To_Soon_Get_
Global_Navigation_System_999.html

India to develop its own version of GPS
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/sep/27gps.htm

Space Applications Centre - Indian Regional Navigation system (IRNSS)
http://www.sac.gov.in/asac-ongoing-satellite-ins.html

Galileo E6 Channel
http://www.southgatearc.org/articles/galileo.htm