MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. Experts from Russia’s Energia Space Corporation are working to make Angola’s AngoSat satellite operate normally again, the corporation said in a statement published on its website.

According to sources in the Russian rocket and space industry, contact with the satellite was lost when its solar batteries began to unfold.

"Experts from the Energia Space Corporation are analyzing the telemetry data provided by the AngoSat satellite in order to resolve the situation. Work is underway to restore contact with the satellite," the statement reads.

The corporation also pointed out that such issues had occurred with Russia’s Foton-M satellite in 2014, NASA’s STEREO mission in 2016 and Kazakhstan’s KazSat satellite in 2017.

The Zenit-2SB carrier rocket with the Fregat booster and Angola’s AngoSat satellite blasted off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan at 22:00 Moscow time (19:00 GMT) on December 26. The Fregat booster and AngoSat separated from the third stage of the carrier rocket eight minutes after the launch. The satellite separate from the booster at 06:54 Moscow time (03:54 GMT) on December 27. After that, the satellite started to move as planned and provide telemetry data, but when its solar batteries began to unfold, telemetry data stopped coming.

Russia’s Energia Space Corporation created the AngoSat satellite for Angola’s Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technologies.