Azerbaijan to set orbital position of 2nd satellite soon

/AzerNews/

By Nigar Orujova

Azerbaijan will set the orbital position of the second telecommunication satellite by 2015, Deputy Minister of Communications and High Technologies Iltimas Mammadov said on November 26.

Signing of contracts for the construction and launching of the geostationary satellite is expected early next year, Mammadov added.

The tender for the second satellite program will involve six companies. Earlier, the Ministry said it plans to lease orbital position of the satellite Azerspace-2 in the long term. This will eliminate the problems associated with the coordination of orbital positions.

Azerspace-2 satellite is expected to be launched in 2017. The construction of the satellite will take 30 months.

Azerbaijan entered the global space club by launching into orbit its own satellite by France’s Ariane 5 ECA launcher, "Arianespace" company in February 2013.

Azerspace-1 telecommunication satellite covers Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and North Africa. The satellite was designed to offer digital broadcasting services, internet access, and data transmission. It also creates multiservice VSAT networks and provides governmental communication services.

Some 80 percent of the satellite's resources are available for commercial purposes. Currently, Azerspace-1 broadcasts cover 120 TV and Radio channels.

The TV content is available when satellite antennas configured with 11,169 MHz frequency, 20,400 speed, Horizontal and FEC - 5/6 polarization.

Azerspace-1's term of exploitation in the orbit will remain legal for up to 15 years. Baku is expected to earn $500-600 million by operating the satellite.

Azerbaijan’s space agency Azercosmos also jointly uses the low-earth-orbit satellites SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 together with the French company "Airbus Defence and Space".

Each of these satellites is capable of daily surveying an Earth's surface area up to three million square kilometers.