Pakistan’s Space Agency
Pakistan will launch its first indigenously developed communications satellite on August 14, 2011, from a facility in China.Speaking to Dawn, Dr Mohammad Riaz Suddle, the director of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission’s (Suparco) satellite research and development centre in Lahore, said the satellite’s life span will be 15 years.Responding to a question, Dr Suddle said the satellite would be launched at a longitude of 38 degrees in geostationary orbit on the equatorial plane at an altitude of 36,000km above the Earth’s surface.
Paksat-1R will carry a communications payload to facilitate the introduction of a range of new services, including broadband internet, digital TV distribution/broadcasting, remote/rural telephony, emergency communications, tele-education and tele-medicine.
The contract for Pakis- tan Communication Satellite (Paksat-1R) was signed between Suparco and China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), a Chinese firm, on October 15, 2008, in Beijing, during President Asif Zardari’s visit to China.
Work on the execution of the contract began soon after, and is progressing as scheduled, according to Dr Suddle. He did not reveal the cost of the project, but said the contract involves various other projects, including infrastructure, and therefore it is difficult to put an exact cost on the satellite itself.
Responding to a question, he said that at least two new satellites – Paksat-1R and Pakistan Remote Sensing Satellite (PRSS) – would be launched in the near future.
The satellites have been developed with technical and financial assistance from China.
The project has been approved by the federal government as part of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), he said.
When quizzed on where the finances for the project were coming from, Dr Suddle said that efforts are under way to secure a long-term concessional loan from the Chinese government to finance a major part of the project. Dawn
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