AZERSAT ENTERS NEAR-EARTH ORBIT

Several years ago, the Azerbaijani government proclaimed the principle of economic development based on the non-oil sector. The sphere of information-communications technology (ICT) was determined the priority after oil. Thus the question arose: how could this global idea be put into practice?

Step by step the country has adopted state programmes for the development of ICT. In the foreseeable future we will have the long-awaited digital television, high-speed Internet, WiMAx technology and, more importantly, organizations to produce not material products, but what is virtually product number one in the world - science-intensive industrial parks and technology towns. It is also planned to set up a regional innovation zone (RIZ), which will demand a large input from the proceeds of the oil and gas projects.

But will we find a market for our IT products, since 80-90 per cent of their content is in Europe and North America, where there is a good environment for the development of IT, data storage systems, intellectual potential and so on?

Experience answers - Yes. In order to reduce the asymmetry between the West and the East in information technology, Azerbaijan has already proposed putting a brand new national communications satellite, AzerSat, into orbit.

There is a plan…

Several years ago Azerbaijan decided to launch its own national satellite, but the project itself was drawn up just recently. In 2006 the republic asked the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to allocate a slot in orbit for the satellite. And now we hear that the ITU intends to consider allocating a place by the end of June this year. In any case, according to the senior consultant of the department coordinating the work of state enterprises at the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Qulam Abdullayev, the ITU has already included Azerbaijan on the list of the first five countries to be granted an orbital location. Azerbaijan has submitted all the necessary documents to the ITU. So we have to be patient and wait and, at the same time, to plan our budget because, according to Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ali Abbasov, negotiations currently underway not just with the ITU, but also with Russia (the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation) imply that this year Azerbaijan will get a licence for a slot in geostationary orbit.

There are several issues related to funding for the project. First, it is necessary to consider the production and launch of the satellite. It must be borne in mind that it is not cheap to have your own satellite. From general experience such projects cost $100-160 million. Preliminary information suggests that AzerSat will cost us $160 million, but will serve for 15 years, while most satellites are used for 14 years. Expenses will be recouped in 3-5 years.

But Azerbaijan has yet to allocate this sum of money and decide whether it will come from the state (this is the first option) or from private investors. According to Abdullayev, a tender will be announced to design the satellite. But it is already known that in its address to the ITU, Azerbaijan said that it wants the satellite to cover the territory of the country, neighbouring states and even Europe, which will be quite justifiable. If the coverage of the Azerbaijani satellite is broad enough, Azerbaijan will be able to act as a transit country for the broadcasting of European and Asian channels.

There is support…

Moreover, apart from the orbital location, the ITU will also announce the country that would like to cooperate with Azerbaijan in this project. Belarusian ambassador to Azerbaijan Nikolay Patskevich said recently that his country is ready to give us any support on this issue. Kazakhstan, which recently launched its own satellite, KazSat, also suggested that all neighbouring countries could use it. However, among the states which have national satellites in orbit, only Saudi Arabia has sent official proposals to Azerbaijan. For this reason, negotiations on the launch of the satellite are currently under way, not just with countries which have their own satellites, but also with major international satellite companies, including IntelSat, EutelSat and InterSputnik, which have already submitted their proposals.

At the same time, negotiations are in progress to determine whether Azerbaijan will launch its satellite by itself or with other organizations. If Azerbaijan wishes to be an information transit country between the East and the West, there should be satellite channels - both high quality and inexpensive.

According to Abbasov, the main concern is the economic element, because only 20-25 per cent of the resources of the satellite will be used by Azerbaijan and the rest will be sold. Negotiations are being held on this issue at the moment. Before the ITU solves the issue of our position in geostationary orbit, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology will carry out an economic analysis of the project and then make an appropriate decision.

According to ITU rules, a satellite should be launched within seven years of documents being submitted (Azerbaijan submitted its documents in 2006) otherwise the position is recalled. But there is also another weighty advantage: Azerbaijan is receiving support for the AzerSat project from the Silk Sat programme, whose task is to create a common satellite system for Silk Road countries, using resources from the USA and Russia. This programme was initiated by an academician of world renown, Roald Sagdeyev, who lives in the USA. It must be remembered that, in April this year, Sagdeyev visited Azerbaijan. During his visit he noted the great importance of space communications - one of the main components of the global information technology system in developed countries.

"In order to develop the infrastructure of information technology, it is very important to carry out purposeful work in this direction. What has been done in Azerbaijan deserves high praise," Sagdeyev said.

At the same time, the academician noted the principal roles of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in the implementation of the Silk Sat project and stressed the importance of the two countries' relations with Russia and the USA. As we can see, Sagdeyev's visit to Baku was no accident and shows that the idea of launching Azerbaijan's national satellite is supported by major world powers.

And loads of advantages…

In this respect, Azerbaijan has many advantages - the country's favourable position at the intersection of Europe and Asia, its growing role in the world community and, finally, its intellectual potential. Our country can use the satellite to become a transit information gate between the West, progressive in terms of information technology, and the East. This means that the latest electronic content available in Europe and the USA will enter the national database system and will then be sent on to other countries in the region.

The director of the Information Technology Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan and corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, Rasim Aliquliyev, said in an interview with R+ that, having its own satellite, Azerbaijan will receive masses of dividends.

The satellite will make it possible to open a surface complex to receive and process space information in Azerbaijan - for example, in order to discover oil and gas deposits, to carry out ecological monitoring of oil-producing and oil-processing regions and to monitor zones of environmental and man-made risk (landslides, avalanches, desertification, rises in sea level and so on), provide estimates and forecasts for agricultural areas, even discover illegal fields of narcotic plants etc.

The satellite will help introduce navigation systems for transport. Incidentally, such systems are being used successfully in Caspian shipping and air transport. Moreover, other ministries and departments are currently implementing projects to introduce navigation systems for transport. If Azerbaijan launches its own satellite, and then similar lower-orbit satellites, there will be an opportunity to provide services not just to ourselves, but also to other countries in the region.

Further, schools and administrative institutions situated away from the centre need access to the Internet and other multimedia products in Azerbaijan. There is no single network or mutual exchange infrastructure between government agencies. This is why the country is using the satellites of other countries - European and Turkish, which are quite expensive. The launch of our own satellite will help us solve this problem and secure international traffic for our country, using just one satellite.

Finally, the cost of content located in Europe and the States and entering the national data storage system will fall.

"This will definitely draw even more attention to Azerbaijan from the world community and the country will become the regional leader in the sphere of ICT," Aliquliyev said.

High quality link…

The president of the Azerbaijani Internet forum and director of the multimedia centre for information technology and systems, Osman Gunduz, also thinks that in terms of the political and economic interests of the country, Azerbaijan's own satellite will yield dividends to the country at both national and international level. "This is beneficial in terms of information and even military security. We should not forget that our country is still at war. Of course, some aspects need to be analyzed in advance. First of all, we need to remember that any space satellite totally exhausts itself in 15 years. Thus we need to calculate everything so as not just to meet our broadcasting and telecommunication requirements, but also to offer our resources and the services of our satellite to other clients and countries. And this is the main issue. It is necessary to draw up a separate plan here," said Gunduz.

All this, including the sale of 75 per cent of the resources of the satellite to foreign nationals, is not a question for just one day. Firstly, Azerbaijan will benefit from the main advantage of having its own satellite -a reliable and high quality link and improved broadcasting.

The Communications Ministry's statement that negotiations between the government of Azerbaijan and the ITU have entered their final stage sounds quite reassuring. It only remains to complete work on some legal and technical issues, after which Azerbaijan will be able to start implementing this project. It is clear that by 2010, the first Azerbaijani national satellite under the beautiful name of AzerSat will be put into orbit.

For the time being, Azerbaijan does not have a satellite, but the problem of supplying Azerbaijan's future "human gold" to the European market has already been solved. Even if the satellite is launched in several years' time, today, in this post-industrial society, the country needs to form a so-called "information society" and an information economy based on knowledge, innovation centres, industrial parks and technology towns, most of whose population would be engaged in the information industries - IT, nanotechnology and biotechnology. Only in these conditions can people use the knowledge they have acquired over centuries and turn it into a competitive product.