Azerbaijan, Baku 28 June / corr Trend S.Babayeva / If Azerbaijan takes a decision on production of its national satellite communcation AzerSat, it might be launched in 2010, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, said.
"Researches have been conducted for over a year in connection with the launching a satellite to orbit," the Ministry said.
Work is carried out in two directions, including the acquisition of orbital position and consideration of proposals by different companies on satellite production.
The Ministry said that talks are held to receive scheduled and unscheduled orbital positions. On the other hand, proposals sent by other companies are considered to study their coincidence to Azerbaijan's requirements.
The Communications Ministry said that the implementation of the national satellite project will first of all remove the country's dependence on other satellites, broad opportunities are opened for television and radio broadcasting, cheap, high-quality and secure telecommunication, information and multimedia, as well as express Internet services, including the mountainous territory of Azerbaijan. As a result Azerbaijan will become a country of exporting satellite services.
Azerbaijani satellite 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.
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