Azerbaijan, Baku, 21 July/ Trend S. Babayeva/ In August to September Azerbaijan will sign a contract to establish and launch its own communication satellite - AzerSat, Ali Abbasov, minister of communication and information technologies of Azerbaijan said.
"We have examined two advantageous proposals which are discussed by the government at the moment," Abbasov said. The Minister did not divulge the names of the companies whose proposals were considered to be interesting.
According to Abbasov, if contracts are signed in September, the satellite can be launched by 2010.
The project of national satellite will help Azerbaijan, first of all, to put an end to the dependence of the country on other communication satellite. It will open new opportunities for TV and radio broadcasting, high-quality and safe telecommunication, information and multimedia and high-speed internet services even in the mountainous areas of Azerbaijan.
AzerSat is evaluated at $80-$100mln. It will be launched to orbit from Baykonur (Kazakhstan). It is expected to cover Europe and part of Asia - Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran. The operational term of AzerSat makes up 20 years.
The Minister did not rule out the launching of second satellite of Azerbaijan in the future.
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