Angola accepts Russian offer to build AngoSat-2
Angola has accepted the offer of Russia’s Roscosmos to build Angola’s second satellite, AngoSat-2, Jornal de Angola reported, citing Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology Jose Carvalho Da Rocha. It will take less than eighteen months to manufacture AngoSat-2, which will have better technical possibilities than the lost AngoSat-1 satellite, the minister said in an interview.
The final decision on the satellites is to be presented at a joint news conference of the ministry’s senior officials and the visiting Roscosmos delegation on 23 April. The minister confirmed that payment for the production of the second satellite would come from the insurance reimbursement for the lost AngoSat-1 satellite worth USD 121 million. The rest of the cost will be paid by the Russian side. The overall sum of the project amounts to USD 320 million.
The AngoSat-1 telecommunications satellite was launched by a Zenit-2SB carried rocket with a Fregat booster on 26 December 2017 from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. Contact with the satellite was lost on the following day after the separation from the upper stage. Attempts to reestablish contact with the satellite were taken till January until it left the zone of direct radio visibility from Russia.