An Indian mission to another frontier in space Military operations rely heavily on satellite navigation, and India’s defence requirements appear to have played an important part in the decision to establish an independent system. The operator of a foreign system can choose to deliberately degrade the accuracy of its signals, as the U.S. reportedly did with the freely accessible GPS signals when invading Iraq. Apart from signals that anyone can utilise free of cost, satellite navigation systems, including the Indian one, provide an encrypted service that is restricted to those authorised to receive it. As part of India’s modernisation of its armed forces, a satellite system of its own gave the country redundancy and reduced dependence on outside agencies for a key technology, observed Wing Commander Ajey Lele, a space and national security analyst at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in Delhi. Moreover, satellite navigation had huge civilian applications, he pointed out. With India developing both economically and technologically, this factor too would have influenced the decision to establish the IRNSS.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 19:05:23 +0000
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