The exercise saw the western and eastern fleets amassing across the Bay for the intensive combat manoeuvres in all the three dimensions of “surface, air and underwater.

(China can take out satellites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test)

ISRO photos via: www.isro.org

Rukmini or GSAT-7

Indian navy used India’s first-ever dedicated military satellite, Rukmini or GSAT-7, to seamlessly network around 60 warships ,75 aircraft and unspecified number of submarines during a massive month-long naval combat exercise in the Bay of Bengal that ended last week.

The location of the exercise “Tropex,” or the theatre-level readiness and operational exercise, was significant since India is steadily bolstering military force-levels on the eastern coast and Andaman and Nicobar archipelago to counter China’s strategic moves in the critical Indian Ocean region (IOR).The geostationary naval communication and surveillance satellite, which has a 2,000-nautical mile footprint over the IOR, beams signals from its UHF, S, Ku and C-band transponders to network all warships and aircraft with operational centres ashore through high-speed encrypted data-links.Tropex exercises of the Indian navy provided with an opportunity to validate its network-centric warfare capabilities with the effective utilization of GSAT-7 satellite, which was launched last year.

TROPEX 2014 - Theatre Level Readiness and Operational Exercise

Exercise Tropex (Theatre Level Readiness and Operational Exercise) involved combination of both the Eastern and the Western Fleets engaged in a month-long exercise.