Luanda – The services of the AngoSat-2 satellite which was launched Wednesday in orbit will be available between January and February 2023, announced the minister of Telecommunications, Information Technology and Media, Mário Oliveira.
The minister – who was speaking to the press after the launching of the satellite from Baikonur Aerospace Station, in Kazakhstan – informed that when AngoSat-2 completes the trip of 36,000 kilometres until its stabilization, the satellite will have the conditions to transmit data and thus make its services available.
Mário Oliveira advanced that up to now the telemetry and parameters of the flight path transmitted by the satellite are “excellent”.
According to the minister the satellite is making a normal flight towards its geospatial position.
The minister expressed his satisfaction with the success of the launching of the ANGOSAT-2 and to him the services of this satellite will increase and improve the country’s telecommunications systems.
Angosat-2 has a transmission capacity seven times greater than the first device, which had 16 transponders in C Band and six in KU Band.
Having 15 years of lifetime, Angosat-2 will also have six transponders in the C Band, 24 in the KU Band and, as a novelty, one transponder in the KA Band.
Angosat-2 is a High Transmission Rate (HTS) satellite with a total weight of two tonnes and will provide 13 gigabytes in each illuminated region (zones within reach of the satellite´s signal).
The satellite will be based on the Eurostar-3000 platform.
Angosat-2 began construction on 28 April 2018 at Airbus company´s facility in France, where all the satellite´s payload was installed.
The structure was then transferred to the ISS Reshetnev factory in the “closed” city of Zheleznogorsk, near Krasnoyarsk in the Siberian region, where the casing was produced and the starter mechanism was installed.
It was followed by the transfer to the launch site, at the Baikonur aerospace station in Kazakhstan, from where it will leave for space orbit.
The new Angolan AngoSat-2 satellite is part of the framework of the Angolan Executive to reduce digital exclusion in the country particularly and in Africa in general, thus allowing to extend telecommunication services in the deeper locations with competitive prices.
The satellite comprises a series of services with capacity to cover the African continent, especially the southern region and most part of southern Europe.
It emerged with the mission of replacing ANGOSAT-1, the first Angolan satellite, launched into orbit on 26 December 2017, which faced problems in space.
Source: Angola Press News Agency