SWGL Fan Shop 2023

Russia’s Proton-M rocket delivers Angolan telecoms satellite in orbit

Proton-M rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Credit: Space in Africa

Edinburgh, 14 October 2022. – Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia’s Proton-M launch vehicle, delivered the Republic of Angola’s Angosat-2 telecommunications satellite into its designated orbit, Roscosmos said.

Angosat-2 was built by the Roscosmos enterprise to replace Angosat-1 launched from Baikonur spaceport in 2017. Angola lost contact with the satellite the day after its launch.

AngoSat-2’s design is based on the Express-1000N platform developed by Russia’s Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company. Meanwhile, the payload module maintaining communications in the C, Ku and Ka frequency bands was delivered by Airbus. The telecoms satellite will begin operations 90 days after launch and is planned to be operational for 15 years.

Check Also

Space Cafe Geopolitics “33 minutes with Dr Jessica West” on nukes in space, 2024 edition

This Space Café Geopolitics will feature Dr Jessica West, Senior Researcher at Project Ploughshares, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, Publisher of SpaceWatch.Global. Nukes in Space, a 2024 edition and an analysis of the Russian veto at the UN Security Council. Last week, Wednesday 24 April 2024, Russia vetoed the UN Security Council’s resolution to reaffirm the Outer Space Treaty’s ban on weapons of mass destruction in space crafted by the US and Japan. That veto was set in the same week that at UN COPUOS in Vienna the Legal Subcommittee had their 63th session.