Azerbaijan, Baku, February 20/ Trend G.Veliyev
The area for the construction of the main control centre for Azerspace satellite has been agreed, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies of Azerbaijan told Trend on Monday.
The centre, which will be located 38 km along the Baku-Shamakhi road, has been approved and construction work will begin soon after selecting a building firm. The main satellite control centre will be located on one hectare.
The construction project of ground stations for satellite control in Azerbaijan meets all international standards. Construction work for the main and reserve satellite control centres should be completed in August.
As the Ministry reported earlier, about 11.6 million manat was expected to construct the ground satellite stations and lay communication lines. The insurance costs will amount to 17 million manat. That company is expected to be announced in the near future.
Azerbaijan's first communications satellite (Azerspace-1) will be delivered to the Kuru space launching site in October and its launch is scheduled within the next three months (by late 2012)
French Arianspace will assist in the launch and the American Orbital Sciences Corporation company will be the manufacturer of Azerspace. The orbital position (longitude 46 east), on which the satellite will be located is used in conjunction with the Malaysian satellite operator MEASAT.
The official exchange rate is 0.7863 manat to $1 on Feb.20.