Progress path

New Delhi, Oct. 22: The Indian Navy is set to get its own satellite with a footprint across the Indian Ocean region. The satellite will be launched next year.

The Naval Communications Satellite figured in discussions of the Indian Navy senior officers’ conference here today when defence minister A.K. Antony said “it will significantly improve connectivity”.

Dedicated satellites for the Indian Air Force and the Indian Army are to follow.

The military satellite programme was first mentioned by the then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee in Parliament in 2005 when he said in reply to a question that the programme was in “advanced stages of development” and would get operational by 2007.

An Indian Navy officer said the service was looking at it “not as a military satellite but as a communications satellite”. India uses a1-meter resolution Technology Experiment Satellite (TES) launched in 2001 for military purposes and has also bought time and images from American and French polar orbiting satellites.

The officer said all Indian naval platforms — ships, aircraft and shore establishments — would be data-linked through the satellite.

The satellite will be launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma told his senior commanders today that “network-centric operations”, induction of new technologies “to tighten the loop between training, technology and operational deployment” would be his priority areas.

The geo-stationary satellite will have a footprint between 600 nautical miles (1,110km approx.) and 1,000 nautical miles (1850km approx.).

In the commanders' conference it was noted that traffic in the Indian Ocean had increased markedly over the past year.

In the conference, defence minister A.K. Antony said the process of creating the post of maritime security advisor — a decision taken since the November 26 terrorist attack in Mumbai — was on.