The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has established a regional navigation satellite system called NavIC to meet the nation’s positioning, navigation, and timing requirements. Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, announced that the recently launched Apple iPhone 15 series includes the NavIC satellite system, describing it as a milestone for India. Chandrasekhar also expressed pride in the fact that these phones are available in India on the same day as in New York and London.

Apple Inc. launched its highly-anticipated iPhone 15 series on Tuesday at its annual event, ‘Wonderlust’. The Union Minister stated, “The world’s largest company in technology, Apple, has launched its new iPhone 15. During this launch, India is achieving two milestones. First, the availability of the iPhone 15 in India would be on the same day as the availability in New York and London…And the second is that the NavIC GPS satellite system developed by ISRO would be present in the iPhone 15.”

NavIC, also known as Navigation with Indian Constellation, was developed independently by ISRO to reduce dependency on global navigation satellite systems controlled by foreign governments. It became operational in 2018 and provides two services: the Standard Position Service (SPS) for civilian users and the Restricted Service (RS) for strategic users. NavIC covers India and extends up to 1500 km beyond its borders. It is compatible with other global navigation satellite systems such as GPS, Glonass, Galileo, and BeiDou.

NavIC has a wide range of applications, including terrestrial, aerial, and marine transportation, location-based services, personal mobility, resource monitoring, surveying, scientific research, time dissemination, synchronization, and safety-of-life alerts.

The inclusion of NavIC in the iPhone 15 series marks a significant advancement in Indian technology and reinforces India’s position in the global satellite navigation system.