[2019-02-13] Airbus consortium builds Angola’s new telecommunications satellite

Source: Macauhub

The Angosat-2 telecommunications satellite is being built by the European Airbus consortium since April 2018 and is expected to be put into orbit in 2021, said the Angolan Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology.

José Carvalho da Rocha said that Angosat-2 will cost US$320 million and was no longer being built by the Russian consortium that built Angosat-1, which after it was launched on 26 December 2016 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, ran into problems communicating with the command centre.

Angosat-1 was reported as lost in February 2018, with Angola giving assurances that its financial involvement had been safeguarded by a well-drafted contract and a US$121 million insurance policy.

The minister, in an interview with state newspaper Jornal de Angola, gave assurances of the transparency of the process through which the state will divest 45% of the shares of telecommunications company Angola Telecom.

Without specifying the amount expected to be raised through the company’s privatization, as internal work is underway to determine its value, the minister said that the key issue is not the amount the State will raise, but rather that it can attract an investor who meets the requirements of the global license that the company already has.