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Azerbaijan to announce a tender for the second satellite in 2010

16 September 2009 13:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Aynur Veliyeva - APA-ECONOMICS. Azerbaijanâ€™s Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies intends to sign a contract with the U.S. Orbital Sciences Corporation which won a tender to manufacture the countryâ€™s first satellite, said Mirheydar Ismailov, Coordinator at the Ministry.

The satellite will be launched in December 2011. The project will cost $160 million, of which 86-87 million will be spent on satellite manufacturing, 16 million on the creation of the main and auxiliary control systems, 40 million on launch of the satellite into orbit, 18 million on the insurance service.

Due to the fact that the project is commercial in nature, it is expected to return expenses in 5-7 years. Azerbaijan intends to use only 20% of the capacity of the satellite, will rent the rest. For example, it offered 40% of the capacity to Malaysia.

According to Mirheydar Ismailov, the ministry will announce a tender to launch the second satellite in 2010.

National satellite will cover Europe (excluding Scandinavia), and half of Asia with most of Kazakhstan.