Russian President Vladimir Putin joined Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at Baikonur to watch the early morning launch of KazSat 1. The two leaders watched the launch from an observation platform about 2 miles from the launch pad. After the rocket’s fiery tail disappeared into the sky, which was just turning pink ahead of dawn, they left in a car without commenting.
Expand Kazakstan's first space satellite, the KazSat-1, launched from the country's Baikonur cosmodrome, a Soviet-era facility now leased by Russia and used to launch missions to the International Space Station.
Kazakhstan is planning space exploration missions and has reached an agreement with Russia to be part of all of Russia’s projects involving Baikonur, according to Serik Turzhanov, who heads the national space agency, Kazkosmos.
Set in the isolated western steppes of Kazakhstan, Baikonur was the scene of the historic launches of the first satellite to orbit the Earth and pioneer cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Today it’s Russia’s main launch site for manned space flights. Nazarbayev has instructed his government to make development of the space industry a strategic goal and it is drafting a national space program up to 2020. Kazakhstan and Russia have also agreed to jointly develop a new launch complex for the more environmentally friendly Angara vehicle, an alternative to the Soyuz booster now in use, which uses poisonous fuel.
The next flight of the Proton launcher is planned for late July, at the earliest, with the European Hot Bird 8 direct-to-home broadcasting satellite.
The Proton-K carrier rocket with Kazakhstan's KazSat satellite took off the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan at 10.44 p.m. GMT, 17th June. The satellite separated from the rocket's acceleration unit strictly on schedule, at 05:32 a.m. GMT.
The satellite has an active service life of 12.5 years and has been built by Russia's Khrunichev space centre under a 2004 contract with the government of Kazakhstan. KazSat is designed to provide communications for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and a part of Russia.
Russia's federal space agency (Roskosmos) said the satellite's launch was a big success of the country's rocket and space industry.
"Roskosmos considers this as a big success of Russia's rocket and space industry and hopes for the space vehicle's further successful work" - Igor Panarin, the press secretary of the agency's head.
According to Panarin, the satellite was put into the designed orbit on time. Stable communications are being maintained with the satellite and all its parameters are nominal.
There are plans to follow KazSat 1 with KazSat 2 and KazSat 3 and several scientific satellites that would be able to predict earthquakes and are equipped with remote sensing devices, and plans to develope a capacity to provide satellite launch services to other nations
KazSat has been successfully launched. Lift-off occurred on schedule at 22:44 GMT. A block DM upper stage propelled the spacecraft into a higher orbit.
The launch of Kazakhstan's first satellite KazSat aboard a Russian Proton-K carrier rocket with DM-3 booster is scheduled for June 17, at 22:44 GMT (2.44 a.m. Moscow time).
The launch was originally scheduled for December 2005, but was postponed until the first half of 2006 due to technical problems. The geostationary satellite is equipped with 10-12 receiving and transmitting devices, and is designed to provide TV broadcast and communications for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and part of Russia.
Kazakhstan's president said today that the upcoming launch of the country's first communications satellite would be a landmark as it meant Kazakhstan would join the space club.
KazSat communications satellite is at the Baikonur space centre in the Central Asian republic for preparations ahead of its June 18 launch.
"The launch of Kazakhstan's first satellite will be a historical event for Kazakhstan. The country will join the ranks of the space powers" - Nursultan Nazarbayev.
KazSat was built by Russia's Khrunichev center under a contract signed in 2004 with the Kazakh government. The geostationary satellite is equipped with 10-12 receiving and transmitting devices, and is designed to provide television broadcast and communications for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and part of Russia. Kazakh Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov said in November last year that his country planned to establish a space presence by building a group of satellites for telecommunications, geological surveying and remote sensing of the Earth
According to the chief of the Agency of Information Support and Communications, Askar Zhumagaliyev, the launch of Kazakhstan’s first national satellite on June 8 has been postponed until June 18.
The satellite’s electric circuitry and systems, and the Russian-made carrier rocket Proton-K and the propulsion unit DM-3, with which the KazSat satellite is to be shot into space, are currently being tested.
A spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency, Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko, said that the “question of postponing the launch until June 18 is being elaborated. However, a decision has not been made yet” .
KazSat with 12 transponders of a Ku-range is intended for telecasting, satellite communications and data relay. Kazakhstan’s launching its own satellite will provide a common information space and information independence of the Central Asian republic. The 1,000-kilogramme satellite has an operation life of 12-15 years. The costs of the project are 65 million dollars.
KazSat, Kazakhstan's first communications satellite, has been sent to Baikonur space centre in the Central Asian republic for preparation ahead of a launch scheduled for June 8, 2006.
Russia's Space Agency said the launch of the satellite on board a Proton-K carrier rocket with DM-3 booster was originally scheduled for December 2005, but was postponed until the first half of 2006 due to technical problems.
KazSat was built by Russia's Khrunichev centre under a 2004 contract with the Kazakh government. The geostationary satellite is equipped with 10-12 receiving and transmitting devices, and is designed to provide TV broadcast and communications for Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and part of Russia. Kazakh Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov said in November last year that his country planned to establish its presence in space by building a group of satellites for telecommunications, geological surveying and earth remote sensing.
According to Alexander Martynov , head of the department in the Federal Space Agency, the first Kazakh telecommunications satellite KazSat that is produced by Russian specialists will be launched "not later than on June 20, 2006".
The Federal Space Agency considers this timeframe “not as the term that should be met, but as the term that we will reduce...the working schedule to improve the reliable functioning of the satellite on the orbit was made up. We are considering all possibilities to reduce the terms of the launch, but without detriment to the quality” .
The launches of Kazakh telecommunications satellites KazSat and KazSat-2 in 2006, the use of the space monitoring system for the prospecting of hydrocarbon deposits of the Caspian shelf were discussed at a meeting of Kazakh Prime Minister Danial Akhmetov and head of the Federal Space Agency Anatoly Perminov on January 25. On Wednesday in Petersburg, presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev stressed the efficient Russian-Kazakh cooperation in the implementation of space projects.
"Kazakhstan is planning to launch four communications satellites and four earth distant probing satellites jointly with Russia before 2011-2012. We are planning to invest in this field about 400 million dollars for the next 2-3 years" - Serik Turzhanov, chairman of the national company Kazcosmos.
Russia and Kazakhstan are also creating the rocket-and-space complex Baiterek at the spaceport Baikonur.