Azerspace-2, also known as Intelsat 38, is

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

's second telecommunications satellite, built by

Space Systems/Loral SSL, formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC (SS/L), of Palo Alto, California, is a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary of Maxar Technologies. SSL designs and builds satellites and space systems for a wide variety of government and commercial cust ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and managed by Azercosmos and

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as In ...

History

A strategic agreement was signed between the Intelsat S.A., and Azercosmos OJSCo. (Azercosmos Open Joint Stock Company), Azerbaijan's national satellite operator, on the 45° East orbital location in February 2015. Both companies collaborated on the development of the Azerpsace-2 satellite. The purchase of Azerspace-2 is carried out mainly at the expense of a preferential loan from the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

credit and export agency

Export Development Canada Export Development Canada (EDC; french: Exportation et développement Canada) is Canada's export credit agency and a state-owned enterprise wholly owned by the Government of Canada. Its mandate is to support and develop trade between Canada and ot ...

Launch

Azerpsace-2 satellite was launched into orbit on 25 September 2018at 22:38 UTC from the centre Spatial Guyanais in

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...

. It separated from the upper rocket stage and operated in test mode for the first two months. Then the satellite was transferred to a working orbit. Azerspace-2 has been designed in order to help Azercosmos to expand its service area. It renders uninterrupted service across

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

. The new satellite will provide continuity of service for the Intelsat 12 satellite.

Satellite description

Azerspace-2 will provide digital broadcasting, data transmission and other services. The satellite will support the

direct-to-home Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commo ...

(DTH) satellite broadcasting, contributing to the emergence of DTH operators in

. It has an anticipated service life of 15 years.

Orbit longitude

The satellite was placed into

geostationary orbit A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular geosynchronous orbit in altitud ...

at 45° East longitude, and will serve the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia, also serving as a backup to

Azerspace-1 Azerspace-1/Africasat-1a', is Azerbaijan's first satellite in space. Built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, it was launched by Ariane 5 into orbit on February 7, 2013 from Kourou in French Guiana at orbital positions 46° east. The satellite cove ...

Commercialization

According to Azercosmos, 46% of the satellite's unladen capacity has been sold.

References

{{Orbital launches in 2018 Spacecraft launched in 2018 2018 in Azerbaijan Communications satellites in geostationary orbit Satellite television Satellites of Azerbaijan Azercosmos Ariane commercial payloads