The countdown to ISRO's 100th mission in Sriharikota has begun. Everything you should know about the GSLV rocket

The GSLV rocket is scheduled to launch the NVS-02 navigation satellite as ISRO's historic 100th mission draws near. In addition to demonstrating India's progress in space technology, this mission ushers in a new era under the new chairman of ISRO. Find out why this launch is important.

According to PTI, which cited sources within the space agency, the countdown for ISRO's historic 100th mission—the launch of a Navigation satellite aboard a GSLV rocket—started on Tuesday and will last for 27 hours.

According to PTI, this is also ISRO Chairman V Narayanan's first mission since taking office on January 13.

At 6:23 a.m. on January 29, the second launch pad here will host the 17th mission of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which will carry the navigation satellite NVS-02 and have an indigenous cryogenic upper stage.

The second navigation satellite in the Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) series, it is designed to give users in the Indian subcontinent and in areas around 1,500 kilometers outside of the Indian landmass precise position, velocity, and timing.

Several sources told PTI that the 27.30-hour countdown started at 02.53 am on Tuesday.

The 50.9-meter-tall GSLV-F15 comes after the GSLV-F12 mission, which on May 29, 2023, successfully launched the first of the second-generation satellites, the navigation satellite NVS-01.

Five second-generation satellites (NVS-01/02/03/04/05) make up NavIC. intended to add improved functionalities to the NavIC base layer constellation in order to guarantee service continuity.

The U R Satellite Center created the NVS-02 satellite, which has a weight of roughly 2,250 kg. In addition to range payload in C-band like its predecessor NVS-01, it has navigation payload in L1, L5, and S bands.

According to ISRO, "the satellite would be used for Internet-of-things (IoT) based applications, precision agriculture, fleet management, location-based services in mobile devices, satellite orbit determination, terrestrial, aerial, and maritime navigation, and emergency and timing services."