READINESS NUMBER ONE

The preparations for the launch of Azerbaijan's first national communications satellite, which lasted more than two years, are nearing the end. The US contractor, which assembled it, has completed all the necessary procedures for testing the communications satellite and officially announced the end of the project. The device handed over to representatives of Azerkosmos will be delivered to Kourou in French Guiana, and the satellite will be launched into geostationary orbit in early February.

The road to Kourou

Supervised by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and JSC Azerkosmos, the programme for the launch of Azerbaijani satellites is the most important and an absolutely new area for our country in the development of the communications sector. This project is being implemented in close cooperation with foreign partners and is going strictly according to plan.

In May 2010, a general contract was signed in Baku with the American company Orbital Sciences Corporation, which completed the assembly and preparations for the launch of the national communications satellite over the past two and a half years. The first national satellite is designed to provide digital broadcasting, Internet access, data transmission, create VSAT multiservice networks, as well as provide closed government communications. To perform these functions, AzerSpace was built on the basis of the Star-2 Bus platform with the most recent technological advances. Twenty-two satellites have been assembled on this basis all over the world, and they are extremely reliable and successful. The payload of the AzerSpace satellite consists of 36 transponders: 24 C-band and 12 Ku-band transponders with a frequency band of 36 MHz. The starting weight of the satellite is 3.3 tonnes, and the period of its operation in orbit is at least 15 years.

In the second half of this year, experts of Orbital Sciences Corporation carried out multiple procedures of testing and integrating the payload module - the AzerSpace satellite with a module of service systems - a space platform. The last debugging procedures and testing of the equipment of the satellite ended a few days ago, and the spacecraft is totally ready to be installed on the launcher. In order to get better acquainted with the final processes of preparations for the launch of AzerSpace, the factory of Orbital Sciences Corporation was visited by employees of JSC Azerkosmos and representatives of the Canadian satellite service operator Telesat, which is responsible for the technical monitoring of the project. After the official ceremony to hand over the satellite to representatives of Azerkosmos, it will be transported to Kourou in French Guiana. Here, experts of the French company Arianespace will install the AzerSpace-1 satellite on the Ariane 5-ECA launch vehicle. And in early February of next year, the satellite will be launched into geostationary orbit.

Viable project

"The total cost of the project to launch the first national satellite is approximately $ 230 million: this amount includes the construction of ground control stations and the cost of the 100-per-cent insurance of the spacecraft," Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ali Abbasov said recently. According to him, in the next four years, Azerbaijan will send at least two more satellites into space. So, in 2014, a low-orbit satellite will be launched to probe the Earth's surface, while the second telecommunications device will be launched in 2016. In particular, in the near future Azerkosmos will name the winners of a recent tender for the selection of contractors to build, place in orbit and insure the low-orbit optical satellite. To this end, a business plan is being prepared, and negotiations are under way with prospective clients, who will be future buyers of optical and radar images of the surface of the Earth shot from space. As part of the launch of the low-orbit satellite, Azerbaijan plans to create a universal ground station to be used for receiving images from other satellites flying over our region. To do this, the joint-stock company recently announced a tender for the purchase of a universal ground station of optical satellite services and a radar system with a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).

Today, almost all work to construct the main and backup control centres (FCC) in Baku and Naxcivan has been completed. The complex of the main FCC is located in the village of Guzdak south-west of the capital, where an office building and engineering installations with special equipment have been built, antenna complexes have been installed, and all the necessary communications have been connected. All objects of the FCC are connected to high voltage power cables, and an armoured fibre-optic cable (FO-48) has been laid, which connects the main control centre with the Xirdalan telephone exchange.

Not so long ago, the construction of the second, backup control centre was completed in the Naxcivan Autonomous Republic. And in the short-term, it is planned to commission the third control centre in Cyberjaya - a key innovation and IT centre of Malaysia. The purpose of this facility is the commercial exploitation of satellite communications resources. This explains the placement of the third centre in South-East Asia. The thing is that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is planning to use only a quarter of the satellite's resources for domestic needs, while the remaining amount will be sold on the international market. The temporary orbital position of our satellite was identified at 46 degrees eastern longitude - it was leased from the Malaysian satellite operator MeaSat. Accordingly, Malaysia has long been among the first customers of Azerkosmos. This country has reserved the right to purchase 40 per cent of the switching resources of AzerSpace. Negotiations are also under way with the company OnAir on the lease of the satellite's capacities.

After the completion of the seven-year process of coordination with 30 countries of the world, whose spacecraft are neighbours of the Azerbaijani satellite, the latter's orbit will be moved to its own position at 43.2, 58.5 and 96 degrees eastern longitude. The very successful orbital position of the Azerbaijani satellite will make it possible to cover the countries of the world with the largest and most dynamically developing ICT markets. In particular, we are talking about Eastern Europe, North Africa, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East.

The particularity of the Central Asian, African and Middle Eastern telecom markets is the presence of huge impassable mountainous and desert areas with relatively undeveloped land (optical) communication infrastructure. In recent years, these regions have seen excess market demand for broadband Internet services, which can be met, for technical reasons, primarily by leasing the transponders of the communication satellites of third countries, in particular the free resources of AzerSpace.

These circumstances give confidence to Azerkosmos, which counts on the commercial attractiveness of the Azerbaijani satellite project. According to preliminary calculations, the satellite project will recoup the investment after 5-7 years of operation. The revenues during the operation of AzerSpace will be 495 million manats, while the net profit is projected at 176 million manats.