India plans to expand its regional satellite navigation system NaVIC in a bid to increase its use in the civilian sector and also by ships and aircraft travelling far from the country's borders.
The Navigation with Indian Constellation (NaVIC) uses seven satellites to provide real-time positioning and timing services in India and an area extending upto 1,500 km from the country's borders.
However, several satellites of the constellation have outlived their lives and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) now plans to replace at least five of these with the improved L-Band, which would enable it to offer better global positioning services to the public.
"We have five more satellites in production, they have to be launched periodically to replace the defunct satellites. The new satellites will have L-1, L-5 and S Band," ISRO Chairman S Somanath told PTI in an interview.
Somanath was speaking on the sidelines of the India Space Congress organised by the SatCom Industry Association.
He said the NaVIC system was not in a "full-fledged operational regime" as some of its seven satellites have failed.
Somanath said the space agency has also approached the government for permission to launch an additional 12 satellites in the Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) to expand the reach of NaVIC.
"A regional to global changeover will be very fast if you have a GEO-MEO constellation. We are talking to the government," the ISRO chief said.
Of the seven satellites used by NaVIC at present, three are in the geostationary orbit and four in the geosynchornous orbit.
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