Links among Indian Navy ships, planes and command centers across the Indian Ocean will get a boost from a satellite orbited in November 2025 — the largest communications spacecraft ever launched from the nation’s soil.
The Indian Space Research Organisation, the nation’s space agency, sent up GSAT-7R to replace the aging GSAT-7, launched in 2013 and previously the backbone of India’s naval communications, the Times of India newspaper reported.
GSAT-7R, also known as CMS-03, is designed to expand secure communications for the Navy’s blue-water operations across UHF, S, C and Ku bands, helping transmit voice, video and data among warships, submarines and aircraft. The satellite will extend the Navy’s operational reach across critical maritime regions, the Times reported.
The spacecraft will occupy geostationary orbit at about 36,000 kilometers altitude, hovering continuously over one spot on Earth in a destination popular for reconnaissance satellites and communications craft like CMS-03, space.com reported.
CMS-03 lifted off atop India’s largest rocket, the Launch Vehicle Mark-3, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the barrier island of Sriharikota in southeast India. Previously, India launched satellites of this size on European Space Agency Ariane rockets from the European Spaceport in French Guiana, an overseas department of France in northeast South America.