ISRO’s feat, a big leap for Indian GPS

After a 54.5-hour countdown, the 44.4-metre-tall, four-stage vehicle took off majestically from the second launch pad at 1,600 hours and after a flight duration of 20 minutes, injected the 1,425-kilogram satellite into the desired orbit.

ISRO chairman AS Kiran Kumar said, "Today we launched the sixth satellite of navigation series and the PSLV-C32 has put the satellite into the right orbit.”

The success of the mission was all the more significant as it comes within 50 days of the launch of its predecessor IRNSS-1E on January 20. "We have only one more satellite remaining in the constellation to complete the sequence of seven satellites which we will be completing next month,” he added.

He said the preparations had already started for the launch of IRNSS-1G, the seventh and last in the IRNSS series, by PSLV-C33 in the first launch pad.

“It will be a milestone moment for ISRO as it will mark completion of the constellation of seven satellites,” he said IRNSS-1F, with a life span of 12 years, was the sixth navigation satellite of the constellation of seven satellites constituting the IRNSS space segment. Once the seven satellites were launched into the space, India would join the elite group of nations to have its own navigational system that would be on par with the GPS of the United States.