Angola’s National Space Programme Management Office (GGPEN) has revealed that it is using capacity on third-party communications satellites paid for by Russia as part of a compensation package for the failure in orbit of AngoSat-1 four months after its launch in late 2017, according to a report in the French-language technology news service Agence Ecofin.
Zolana João, director of the National Space Programme Management Office, said on 22 September 2018 that Angola has obtained from Russia, since April 2018, part of the compensation for the failure of the AngoSat-1 satellite, built by the Russia Space Corporation Energia (RKK Energiya) and launched into orbit in December 2017. This partial compensation, two satellite signals, is currently equivalent to one-third of AngoSat-1’s capabilities.
According to Zolana João, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies (MTTI), to whom these telecom resources have been allocated, is already reorienting some of the telecommunications services on it. The Director of the National Space Programme Management Office explained that one of the satellite signals obtained in compensation is in the C-band. It is provided by the Russian AM-7 satellite operated by the Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC), a Russian state-owned company, and built by EADS Astrium (now Airbus Defence and Space). The other signal, in the Ku-band, is provided by the Eutelsat-3B satellite and operated by Eutelsat, the European commercial satellite communications company.
Zolana João pointed out that Angola will use these two signals until AngoSat-2, its new communications satellite currently being built by Russia, is handed over to the Angolan authorities by 2020.
