How Kargil spurred India to design own GPS

[AugenBlick]

You may be amazed know that due to velocity and height of the sats, atomic clocks will not run at same speed. They need to account for time variation in space constantly. Theory of relativity in action. I am sure our accuracy will be less than GPS if everything was developed in house...

Well they are gonna put four sats in space and then we will know the actual (achieved) accuracy.
Till then we can only speculate.

 

[Thirdfront]

You have commercial GPS. What we're talking of is military applications where the signals will be encrypted.

That is what I said earlier, but my question is are we using military grade GPS signals in Brahmos now? If not, why would we want that access suddenly during kargil war? And if it was the reason, we are still behind because our accuracy is not better than civilian GPS (if reports are accurate)...

Well they are gonna put four sats in space and then we will know the actual (achieved) accuracy.
Till then we can only speculate.

four or seven?

 

[AugenBlick]

That is what I said earlier, but my question is are we using military grade GPS signals in Brahmos now? If not, why would we want that access suddenly during kargil war? And if it was the reason, we are still behind because our accuracy is not better than civilian GPS (if reports are accurate)...


four or seven?

Seven is the final tally to cover India + 1500 km
Testing and verification begins at four.

 

[Thirdfront]

Seven is the final tally to cover India + 1500 km
Testing and verification begins at four.

Oh, ok... Minimum required would be 3 and for good accuracy you need 5. That is what is true for GPS, AFAIK. Again, if the entire nation is not covered, accuracy will be varying. In any ways, it is good start, but I think we need lot of improvements...

 

[Tshering22]

Yes . As general V K Singh said we can not become super power with purchased weapons.

Hari ji, ISRO is on track. But the weapon makers of India are not. Look at the quality of equipment and look at the corruption at the selection committee which always opts for foreign made materials despite that some of the equipment we make are up to global standards. Some may needs initial tweaking but which weapon platform doesn't? Even F-16 and M-1 Abrams were developed in variants and upgraded.

Coming back to the topic, if we get our satellite system in place, this means we will also need to have the ability to strike down enemy satellites if it comes to an ASAT war. Because without it, we will be sitting ducks. If the enemy in worst case scenario were to blow our satellites out, our nuclear missiles cannot target them.

Also, a fall-back option of integrating IRNSS with our existing stake at GLONASS should be in the cards. We need to have a fail-safe mechanism which allows us to use secondary signal capability to strike in case our satellites are attacked.

 

[AugenBlick]

Oh, ok... Minimum required would be 3 and for good accuracy you need 5. That is what is true for GPS, AFAIK. Again, if the entire nation is not covered, accuracy will be varying. In any ways, it is good start, but I think we need lot of improvements...

No four will cover entire nation
But will not have the required accuracy.
Read this

Isro launched the first of the satellites in the group, IRNSS-1A, in July last. "By mid-2015," said Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan, "we will have all the seven in place." The system will be functional by the beginning of 2016. Basic navigational services wouldn't have to wait that long—they can take off with just four satellites in orbit, which will be this year. "When we have four satellites by the end of this year, we will have an operational system and then we can go and test its accuracy to validate it," said K Radhakrishnan.

Third Para

 

[HariPrasad]

Hari ji, ISRO is on track. But the weapon makers of India are not. Look at the quality of equipment and look at the corruption at the selection committee which always opts for foreign made materials despite that some of the equipment we make are up to global standards. Some may needs initial tweaking but which weapon platform doesn't? Even F-16 and M-1 Abrams were developed in variants and upgraded.

you are right but we should aim that. You see, Missile technology control regime bans STS missiles so we made a great progress in that. On the other hand we are struggling to build even an artillery gun simply because of corruption is involved. We should now ban import of light and medium category fighters since we made a good progress in it.

Coming back to the topic, if we get our satellite system in place, this means we will also need to have the ability to strike down enemy satellites if it comes to an ASAT war. Because without it, we will be sitting ducks. If the enemy in worst case scenario were to blow our satellites out, our nuclear missiles cannot target them.

We have thetechnology but politician are not ready to face political fall out so they do not give permission like MIRV.

Also, a fall-back option of integrating IRNSS with our existing stake at GLONASS should be in the cards. We need to have a fail-safe mechanism which allows us to use secondary signal capability to strike in case our satellites are attacked.

Yes it will always be there.

 

[Thirdfront]

No four will cover entire nation
But will not have the required accuracy.
Read this

Third Para

4th one is required for altitude. And I am pretty sure what he meant was not for entire nation but in the regions where all four sat signals will be available (don't know which region it would be). Let us hope for good news...

 

[dray]

As someone said, need is the mother of all invention!!

 

[OrionHunter]

That is what I said earlier, but my question is are we using military grade GPS signals in Brahmos now? If not, why would we want that access suddenly during kargil war? And if it was the reason, we are still behind because our accuracy is not better than civilian GPS (if reports are accurate)...

The Brahmos uses the terminal guidance by a homing radar seeker augmented by the universal American GPS as well as the Russian GLONASS satellites which can be switched off by them at any time. This is unacceptable for a strike platform. Therefore the dire necessity of using our own indigenous GPS system.

 

[Thirdfront]

The Brahmos uses the terminal guidance by a homing radar seeker augmented by the universal American GPS as well as the Russian GLONASS satellites which can be switched off by them at any time. This is unacceptable for a strike platform. Therefore the dire necessity of using our own indigenous GPS system.

So, kargil war had nothing to do with it as mentioned in the original article. GPS guided munitions/missiles are pretty much useless against moderately advanced enemy (jamming is rather easy) but it is better to have our own system than to rely on somebody else. It will also give a push to desi garmins, I hope...

 

[OrionHunter]

So, kargil war had nothing to do with it as mentioned in the original article. GPS guided munitions/missiles are pretty much useless against moderately advanced enemy (jamming is rather easy) but it is better to have our own system than to rely on somebody else. It will also give a push to desi garmins, I hope...

Right! But remember, cruise missiles have redundant guidance systems on board just for this. Nowadays, missiles use advanced systems like GPS, inertial guidance and Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM). So if one system fails or is jammed, the other kicks in automatically.

 

[Thirdfront]

Right! But remember, cruise missiles have redundant guidance systems on board just for this. Nowadays, missiles use advanced systems like GPS, inertial guidance and Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM). So if one system fails or is jammed, the other kicks in automatically.

Off-course... I think even UAVs... I attended a talk by DRDO senior figure who was lamenting about 60 kg INS that we have from Russia... they were redesigned (or being redesigned) weighing only 600 gms or so to be used in UAVs...

 

[The Deterrent]

This is not correct. US has restrictions on the receivers made in US and exported outside US (on speed and altitude). But the receivers made outside US have no such restriction. For military grade signals, only way to use them w/o US approval is to break encryption and I doubt anybody have done that.

No, even the receivers made outside US should be able to decrypt the military-grade signals to get the required performance and remove those restrictions for (US GPS), which is not the case.

 

[Thirdfront]

No, even the receivers made outside US should be able to decrypt the military-grade signals to get the required performance and remove those restrictions for (US GPS), which is not the case.

I am not talking about military grade signal receivers. Civilian receivers made in USA have certain restrictions if being exported. But third country manufactured receivers have no such restrictions. They can be used in missiles if accuracy is acceptable....