Congress has designated India’s NavIC – a regional satellite navigation system, as an “allied” navigational system alongside Galileo of the European Union and QZSS of Japan.
NavIC is India's homegrown autonomous regional satellite navigation system and provides accurate real-time positioning and timing services covering a 1,500 kilometre radius over the Indian subcontinent.
According to India’s national space agency, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), NavIC supports upcoming Mobile, Automotive and IoT Platforms and would deliver superior location-based services to India’s industries and technology ecosystem.
The move now requires the formal approval of the US House and the Senate, before President Donald Trump signs it into law.
The US is trying to develop a programme for multi-global navigation satellite system. The next step, according to NDAA 2020, is for the Air Force Secretary to implement a programme to prototype an M-code based, multi-global navigation satellite system receiver.
In September the world standards body 3GPP, which is developing the protocol for mobile telephony, also approved NavIC.
