Before reading this article, I sincerely invite you to click "Follow", which is not only convenient for you to discuss and share, but also brings you a different sense of participation, thank you for your support.
If other countries have it, India will also have it! Because it has seen Germany's "Leopard-2" tank, India has produced its own "Arjun tank"; in order to benchmark China's "055 destroyer," India has also announced a plan to build a "10,000-ton" destroyer.
Since many countries have already landed on the moon with lunar rovers and brought back lunar soil of varying weights, India has also launched its own lunar surface explorer, although the final result is still uncertain.
Although India's self-produced equipment and military science and technology projects have always given people a feeling of "not necessarily reliable", as the world's most populous country today, Indians' self-confidence has never weakened.
Now that India's own navigation system has begun to be built, this time they have put the object of comparison on China and the United States, so is India's IRNSS reliable this time?
Another bold statement from India
In July 2013, India launched an artificial satellite called IRNSS-14 using its own launch vehicle. The launch of this artificial satellite marks the official start of the construction of India's own satellite navigation system.
At this point in time, the GPS navigation system of the United States has been working for nearly 70 years, and the Beidou satellite navigation system from China has also been in use for ten years.
The main function of the so-called satellite navigation system is to use satellites to accurately locate specific targets located on the earth's surface, and rely on computer systems to formulate relevant action routes to determine the next movement trend.
The most valuable part of this system is that it is aimed at not only targets located on land. Rather, it contains stationary and moving units in different environments on the ground, at sea, and in the air.
Some people have compared the satellite system to the "eye in the sky", and this metaphor can vividly describe its role. Because of this, at the beginning of the emergence of satellite navigation, the most widely used in the military field was still the most widely used.
Since the 60s of the last century, the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Japan and other countries have launched their own satellite navigation systems, and the United States took the lead in introducing them into civilian use. Once this unprecedented advanced technology is used, it has shown great commercial value in civilian use.
As the United States, which has the largest number of artificial satellites launched in the world and the most advanced development of satellite navigation technology, its native GPS positioning system has also become the navigation system "bound" to most of the world's industries for a long time.
First of all, because the economic value of satellite positioning is too high, and there are too few countries that have the ability to establish their own relevant systems, so they do not have to worry about recovering the cost;
More importantly, abandoning the construction of one's own satellite system means presenting most of one's own domestic state to other countries. In the event of an unexpected situation such as war, both the dispatch of the army and the strategic intentions will be at a glance.
For the sake of national security, although many countries still have their own satellite positioning systems, many countries that are wary of the US GPS system have all started to develop their own or cooperate with partner countries to develop their own GPS systems.
As a neighbor that has been secretly competing with China for many years, India has begun to sit still after seeing China's Beidou satellite positioning system put into use smoothly. However, unlike China's low-key statement, India said at the beginning of the plan:
The United States GPS, which has been used for more than half a century, and needless to say, even China's Beidou, which currently has obvious advantages in the world, is also not as good as India's satellite positioning system, which means that IRNSS has not yet come out, and it has already booked the title of the world's first in the world.
Is India's satellite positioning system really as powerful as they say?
The trajectory of IRNSS
At present, many of the world's technological developments are based on cooperation and imitation of advanced countries. India's satellite navigation is no exception, and the Indians first cooperated with the United States on the GAGAN project.
In fact, this project was originally an extension of the GPS system, also known as "GPS-assisted low-earth orbit augmented navigation". The project is dominated by a geosynchronous satellite developed by India, with multiple base stations and control systems on the ground.
Its main band coincides with one of the bands of the U.S. GPS system, and GPS navigation can be used to locate and obtain information. Its application range includes the entire land part of India, as well as the maritime areas around it, and its accuracy is largely determined by GPS.
Although the project was established earlier, due to the failure of the satellite launch, it was not officially completed until 2013. However, the ups and downs in the process have nevertheless provided India with experience in developing its own satellite system.
According to India's own "left and right" nature, it is naturally impossible to place all the bets on the United States. While cooperating with the United States, they are also actively seeking joint development with Russia and Europe.
Whether it is GLONASS in Russia or Galileo in Europe, India is involved. In 2004, India partnered with Russia to launch six of the 18 satellites in the GLONASS program, three of which were simply made in India.
India's share of the program, from manufacturing to launch and operation, has increased unprecedentedly, and the accumulation of experience has also ensured that in the future, India's satellite navigation system will be compatible with Russian and American signals and will not be interfered with by both in the frequency band.
Benefiting from the legacy of the former proprietor, the British government, India joined the "Galileo" project in Europe when China's investment in the "Galileo" project in Europe failed, and became one of the few countries on Earth whose satellite system is compatible with most major systems.
When India's satellite technology and self-confidence had accumulated to a certain extent, in 2006 the Indian government eagerly approved the approval documents for the IRNSS project. In 2007, the project was approved, and a launch plan of "seven satellites in six years" was formulated.
A slight difference from the original plan is that the IRNSS system, which was originally planned to be launched and used in 2012, was only a beginning in 2013, and the time for all the satellites to enter the scheduled orbit was delayed until 2017.
The seven satellites of IRNSS are divided into two parts and have different states in the Earth's near-Earth position. Four of them are deployed in geosynchronous orbit and move at an angle of about 30 degrees.
The coverage of this system will include a span of 40 to 140 degrees east longitude and 80 degrees north and south of the equator, with most of the Indian mainland and the Indian Ocean within the satellite's positioning range. The signal error will be reduced to less than 20 meters and will be effective around the clock.
In today's world, there are not many independent countries that can build their own satellite positioning systems, and India has naturally accomplished a feat of doing so. But has their rhetoric beyond GPS and the Beidou system come true?
"Made in all nations", the death of India
In addition to its breadth and precision, confidentiality and independence are important criteria for measuring the strength of a satellite system. The so-called secrecy and independence are manifested in the interference of satellite signals of other countries and the degree of mastery of the core technology of the satellite.
In terms of the former, India has almost done the best it can do, because it was built on the basis of a joint project with the United States and Russia, so India has put a lot of effort into security.
IRNSS not only has good compatibility with other navigation systems, but also has developed its own signal frequency, and it also does a good job in data type independence. However, in the latter, India encountered many insurmountable technological barriers from backward countries.
Although India signed several space agreements with the United States in 2009, it is well known that core technologies cannot be bought with money. One of the most obvious manifestations is that the accuracy of IRNSS has so far not been comparable to that of GPS and Beidou.
On the other hand, due to its enthusiasm for "buying, buying, buying", India has not only reaped the title of "made in all countries" in weapons, but also virtually hindered the development of independent research and development of science and technology.
Moreover, since India still relies mainly on imports for many core components, including spaceborne atomic clocks, when it comes to the safety of IRNSS, its independence and security under crisis still need to be put under a question mark.
In addition, many in the industry believe that IRNSS in India is only a preliminary architecture, or a "half-in-product". Because if according to India's original idea, at least 20 satellites will be needed to reach a system comparable to GPS and Beidou.
If 24 self-developed satellites can be used for networking, it can completely get rid of the dependence on the US GPS system and achieve a truly autonomous satellite positioning system. Unfortunately, India today does not have the financial resources to do so, at least not in the short term.
Interestingly, the rhetoric of the Indians was debunked by the Americans, who are also partners. In 2011, India's IRNSS was mentioned in the 2011 U.S. strategic sector forecast, and it was bluntly said that it was much different from China's Beidou.
Although India has always regarded China and the United States and other countries as the target of catching up and surpassing in terms of military weapons and high-precision technology, because of the policy of "making rather than buying" formulated by the Indian government, it has determined that the lifeblood of science and technology, which seems to be independently developed, is still in the hands of other countries.
epilogue
Although many people are optimistic about India's future development. But the bottleneck of India's development is also obvious: the bottleneck does not come from the limitations of the outside world, but the limitation of self-breakthrough, and India obviously still has a long way to go in terms of independent research and development to break through technical barriers and innovative development.
Resources
1 Development Status of Regional Navigation Satellite Systems in India
2 Analysis of the Characteristics of IRNSS in India's Regional Navigation Satellite System (Part I)
3 Analysis of the Characteristics of IRNSS in India's Regional Navigation Satellite System (Part II)
4 The Ambitious Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS)
Due to the rules of the platform, you will only be recognized as a fan if you have more interaction with me. If you like my articles, you can click "Follow" and receive the article push as soon as you become a fan.