India’s First Dedicated Navigation Satellite, the IRNSS-1A successfully put in orbit Monday July 01,2013

India’s first dedicated navigation satellite, the IRNSS-1A, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, was successfully put in orbit on July 01,2013 Monday night

The launch vehicle, PSLV-C22, bearing the 1,425-kg navigation satellite, blasted off the launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh(80 km (50 mi) north of Chennai,Tamil Nadu) scheduled lift-off time of 11.41 p.m.

As the PSLV-C22 tore into the night skies and set off four stages of ignition and separation, all the while gaining in altitude and velocity, down on earth, twitchy mission controllers at the command centre awaited the final confirmation of the mission’s success.

About 20 minutes after the lift-off, the PSLV-C22 completed its task of injecting the IRNSS-1A into a sub geosynchronous transfer orbit with a 284-km perigee (nearest point to the Earth) and 20,650 km apogee (farthest point from the Earth)

As the final act of the rocket separating from the satellite unfurled on the giant screen at the mission control room, the gathering of scientists and engineers broke into cheers and applause. 

Once again, Team ISRO had pulled off with clockwork precision the roughly 65-hour countdown that began on June 29 and ended in the lift-off close to midnight on July 1,2013

Note
The IRNSS-1A is the first of the proposed 7 satellites in the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System.

With a mission life of 10 years, it will deliver applications ranging across terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation, disaster management, tracking of vehicles, guiding hikers and travellers, and visual-voice navigation for drivers

The 1,425 kg IRNSS-1A, the first satellite in Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), has a mission life of 10 years and would provide accurate real-time position and timing information to users in the country as well as the region extending up to 1,500 km around it, ISRO said.