Article Posted on : - Feb 03, 2010

An artistic conception of the 'KazSat-2' satellite.

ASTANA (BNS): Kazakhstan space agency plans to launch second communications satellite KazSat-2 in December this year, the head of the Kazakh national space agency Kazkosmos, Talgat Musabayev has said, according to a Russian media report.

"Work will end this year, and the launch of the designed KazSat-2 is planned for December 2010," Itar Tass quoted Musabayev as saying. He said that in order to prevent the situation with KazSat-1, "control devices were replaced with devises of west European producers".

“Amendments were also introduced in the treaty as to designer's guarantees of quality of the designed satellite as well as responsibility of the designer in case of insured accident after the launch of the satellite and its commissioning,” he added.

The KazSat spacecraft was designed by Russia's Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre in accordance with an agreement reached by Russian president Vladimir Putin during his visit to Kazakhstan in January 2004. A formal agreement between Kazakh and Russian governments on the mission was signed on January 18, 2005, it said.

The Proton-K rocket with the satellite blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur launch pad on June 18, 2006. The engine firing to change the latitude of the geostationary orbit was conducted on July 7, 2006. On July 25, 2006, Roskosmos announced that KazSat had been in the operational orbit at 103 degrees Eastern longitude over the Equator, the report said.