ISRO Prepares for the Landmark 100^th Mission in 2025 with GSLV-F15/NVS-02 Launch

By R Anil Kumar

• ISRO Chairman S Somanath has announced that the Indian space agency will launch its milestone 100^th mission in January – marking the first launch of 2025

• The milestone will be commemorated with the launch of the NVS-02 satellite, carried aloft by the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota

• This mission will carry the NVS-02 payload, which is part of India’s Navigation Satellite System (NavIC). The NVS-02 satellite is a critical component in expanding India’s satellite navigation system, aiming to enhance precision military activities, strategic applications, and terrestrial navigation

• This comes after the completion of ISRO’s PSLV C-60 mission, which was the 99^th rocket launch from Sriharikota, on December 30, 2024

Bengaluru, December 3. ISRO is set to achieve a significant milestone with its 100th mission, the GSLV-F15/NVS-02, scheduled for January 2025. This mission will utilize the GSLV Mk-II rocket and aims to enhance India’s navigation capabilities through the NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) system.

ISRO ended 2024 on a high with the successful launch of its 99^th mission, on December 30, 2024 – the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV-C60 – which has two significant experimental missions – SpaDex and POEM-4. Even as these experiments continue into the new year, the Indian space agency looks to ride the high wave and has made a big announcement.

With ISRO’s 100^th mission, all eyes are on the GSLV-F15/NVS-02 mission, which will play a crucial role in the expansion and reliability of India’s satellite navigation system. This milestone mission highlights the growing capabilities of ISRO and its continued pursuit of excellence in space exploration

ISRO Chairman S Somnath attributed the success to meticulous effort and precision. “Whatever we target must be accomplished. However, no success can be taken for granted. We know very well that a launch can fail, so we take all necessary precautions to ensure success,” Somnath said.

THE GSLV-F15/NVS-02 MISSION AND ITS OBJECTIVES

GSLV-F15 will be the 17^th flight of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle or GSLV. It will also be the 8th operational flight of the GSLV (11th overall flight) with India’s indigenous Cryogenic stage.

Key objectives of the mission under the NavIC system will be to aid:

• Precision military activity
• Strategic applications
• Terrestrial, aerial, and maritime navigation
• Precision agriculture
• Geodetic surveying
• Emergency services
• Fleet management
• Location-based services in mobile devices
• Orbit determination for satellites
• Marine fisheries
• Timing services for financial institutions, power grids, and other government agencies
• Internet-of-Things (IoT) based applications

ALL ABOUT THE NVS-02 / IRNSS-1K SATELLITE

NVS-02, as the name suggests, will be the second in the series of 2nd-generation navigation satellites and the ninth satellite in the Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC). Just like its predecessor – NVS-01 – the NVS-02 will most likely have two kinds of payloads – navigation payload and ranging payload.

The navigational payload is what transmits signals to users on Earth. It does so using three bands in the spectrum – L1, L5, and S band.

Since time is relative, and many factors affect it, to have the precise time, an atomic clock is on-board this payload. It is usually a Rubidium atomic clock.

A rubidium atomic clock measures the length of one second by counting the oscillations of rubidium-87 atoms. These clocks are so powerful that they have an accuracy of about three parts in 10 quadrillion, which means they can keep time within one second over 100 million years.

The ranging payload consists of a transponder. This helps the navigation satellite transmit time-stamped navigation signals to the receivers at the ground station.

This information is then processed at the end-user stage to derive their exact position, speed, and time. This helps in providing seamless and non-stop service irrespective of weather conditions on Earth.

The 2nd-generation satellites in NavIC have a much more robust encryption system to keep all communications completely secure.

As in the case of US’ GPS, India’s NavIC also has dual use – civilian and military. NavIC was earlier named IRNSS or Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, which had a much more limited coverage area.

Currently there are four global navigation systems – GPS from USA, GLONASS from Russia, Galileo from European Union, and BeiDou from China. India’s NavIC and Japan’s QZSS are still only regional, but may be global in the future.

The last GSLV mission was the GSLV-F14/INSAT-3DS Mission, which was launched on February 17, 2024. It placed the INSAT-3DS satellite payload into a GTO or Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.

The last GSLV mission used for NavIC was in May 2023, when ISRO launched NVS-02’s predecessor NVS-01. The mission was titled GSLV-F12/NVS-01 Mission.

About ISRO’s GSLV-F15/NVS-02 100^th Landmark Mission

Mission Overview

• Mission Name: GSLV-F15/NVS-02
• Launch Vehicle: GSLV MK-II
• Payload: NVS-02 satellite (also referred to as IRNSS-1K)

This mission follows ISRO’s successful completion of its 99th mission, PSLV-C60, which took place at the end of 2024. The GSLV-F15/NVS-02 is poised to significantly bolster India’s satellite navigation system, positioning it as a competitor to global systems like GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou.

With this launch, ISRO continues to demonstrate its growing capabilities in space exploration and technology development, marking a notable step forward in India’s ambitions in the field of satellite navigation.’

As 2025 set to begin with ISRO’s 100^th mission, all eyes are on the GSLV-F15/NVS-02 mission, which will play a crucial role in the expansion and reliability of India’s satellite navigation system. This milestone mission highlights the growing capabilities of ISRO and its continued pursuit of excellence in space exploration.

Busy 2025 for ISRO with Series of Missions:

ISRO to begin the new Year with is historic 100^th Mission from the spaceport of Sriharikota when it would launch NVS-02 part of NAVIC constellation in mid-January and the Vyommitra mission, sending a female humanoid robot which will undertake astronaut-like tasks for the Gaganyaan mission in February, besides a crew escape mission.

Discussing ISRO’s 2025 roadmap, ISRO Chairman S. Somanath mentioned that the NVS-02 launch is among several key operations the agency will carry out this year. He also provided a concrete timeline for Chandrayaan-4, stating that the final docking of the lunar mission will occur around January 7. This announcement comes just days after ISRO successfully managed the PSLV-C60 launch, which carried the SpaDeX and other payloads.

It would be followed by the launch of the world’s expensive Rs. 12,500 crore Indo-US NASA-ISRO’s Earth observation NISAR satellite for mobile communication in February-March, 2025.

Regarding Gaganyaan, Somnath stated that ISRO will conduct two uncrewed test flights as part of the ambitious Gaganyaan Mission. These flights are tentatively scheduled for the first quarter of this year. If the uncrewed flights are successful, ISRO plans to launch a crewed mission in the third quarter of 2025. The Gaganyaan mission is India’s ticket to joining the elite club of countries with crewed space operations. This mission aims to make India the fourth country to achieve independent human spaceflight missions.

Another critical mission that ISRO will launch this year is EOS-05, also known as GISAT-2. This Earth observation satellite will provide precise geospatial imagery and will also aid in quickly detecting natural disasters from space.

Indian Data Relay Satellite System (IDRSS) is another key mission in ISRO’s 2025 lineup. Two satellites – IDRSS-1 and IDRSS-2 – will be launched in 2025 and 2026, respectively. IDRSS will aid in real-time communication between low Earth orbit spacecraft and ground stations. Such satellites are very important for major programmes such as Gaganyaan.

India earned $400 million last decade

India generated $400 million in revenue from commercial satellites in the last decade for the US and the EU.

So far, ISRO has generated $172 million in revenue by launching satellites for the US, and €292 million ($304 million) for the EU. Out of this, $157 million from US launches and €260 million ($271 million) from EU launches have come in the past decade alone. This shows the kind of progress that India has made in the space economy, and its current stature as a leading spacefaring nation.