Angola launched its AngoSat-2 communications satellite yesterday (12 October) aboard the Proton-M Blok DM-03 rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, reports Africanews.space. The high-throughput satellite (HTS) is based on the Eurostar-3000 platform with a design lifespan of 15 years, enabling near-complete Ku-Band coverage of southern Africa plus C-Band coverage of the entire African continent and a significant part of southern Europe.
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, the ill-fated USD328 million AngoSat-1 orbiter was launched in December 2017 but was lost shortly afterwards, prompting AngoSat-2 to be built by Russia’s Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems at no cost to Angola.
According to statements from Angolan officials including the telecoms minister Mario Augusto da Silva Oliveira, AngoSat-2’s services will contribute to reducing the digital divide by extending ICT access to more Angolans, while development of satellite services will go hand-in-hand with investment in national broadband infrastructure, including submarine and terrestrial fibre-optics.