MOSCOW, March 17, /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s new telecommunication satellites Express-AT1 and Express-AT2 begins to work in April and May, press service of the Russian ministry of communication says adding the satellites will offer communication services to outer regions.
“After a complex of tests, Express-AT1 will begin working in April 2014, and in May we shall begin a commercial use of Express-AT2,” the press service stresses. “The new space apparatuses will be used for broadcast throughout the country’s territory, and Siberia and Far East regions will get access to new Russian and foreign television channels.”
The press service stressed the authority has been paying much attention to development of the satellite group, which “is necessary for organisation of digital television and for offering the communication services in the country’s distanced regions, to where it is too expensive, and sometimes even impossible, to lay optic channels.”
“The ministry has been hoping a lot for development of the satellite programme,” Minister Nikolai Nikiforov says. “We want the satellites to be produced in Russia, but we should see clearly the financial responsibility of a producer, which participates in the entire chain of production and launching, for timely production of a satellite, its successful launch and taking to the orbit.”
Deputy head of the federal communication agency, Igor Chursin, says “launches of those space apparatuses will be most expected and most important events in 2014 not only for the organisations involved in the production, but for the entire country.”
On Sunday, both satellites, launched from the Baikonur pad, were reached into the orbit successfully. Active life of every space apparatus is expected to make 15 years. The geostationary telecommunication satellites of medium size Express-AT1 and Express-AT2 were made at Krasnoyarsk’s Reshetnev enterprise jointly with Frances’ Thales Alenia Space under the Russian federal space programme to 2015.
The satellite programme will be developed in 2014, the ministry of communication says. The ministry expects launches of four more satellites: Express-AM6, Express-AM4R, Express-AM8 and Express-AM7. The next step in development of the orbital group will be a launch of the heavy class apparatus Express-AMU1, due in 2015.