Azerbaijan satellite to be launched on Friday

A satellite belonging to the Republic of Azerbaijan will be launched on Friday morning.

The US300 million (RM927mil) Azerspace/Africasat-1a satellite was jointly developed by Measat Satellite Systems Sdn Bhd and Azercosmos, a company belonging to the Communications and Information Technologies Ministry of the republic.

The satellite will be launched through an Ariane 5 launch vehicle from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at around 5.26am Malaysian time.

It will hover in the orbital space belonging to Measat while its operations will be managed from a control centre in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku.

The satellite, designed and built by Orbital Sciences Corp (ORB), will provide communications services to Azerbaijan, Central Asia, Europe and Africa.

The launching will be witnessed by Measat director, Tun Mohammed Haniff Omar and the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Malaysia Tahir Karimov, at the All Asia Broadcasting Centre in Bukit Jalil.

Astro Awani will televise the event live on Friday from 5am onwards.