Scientists are eagerly awaiting the March 9 launch of IRNSS-1D, the fourth Indian regional navigation satellite.

The Rs. 1,400-crore-plus IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) has been called ‘India’s own GPS.’ It can do all that we do with GPS, a U.S. military system, but apparently much better and at a local level.

This satellite will complete more than half of the ambitious ‘Indian GPS’ ring over the subcontinent and allow ISRO’s sat-nav team to prove its usefulness in location-based applications.

Four satellites out of the constellation of seven are said to be the minimum the scientists need to check out signals and accuracy.

S.K. Shivakumar, Director of ISRO Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, told The Hindu that IRNSS-1D would finetune the details being provided by its earlier three siblings. The next three navigation satellites, he said, would take this to the targeted precision levels and make it easy to pinpoint required positions for many users.

IRNSS-1D is slated to be put on the PSLV launcher on February 28 at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The first one, IRNSS-1A, was launched in July 2013.

A.S. Ganeshan, ISRO’s SatNav Programme Director at ISAC, said, “This is a significant milestone. For the first time we will be able to demonstrate or give proof of concept of the regional navigation system.”