Member of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco), Muhammad Riaz Sadal on Friday said Pakistan will successfully launch PakSat-R1 communication satellite services from Saturday. Talking to PTV, he said that PakSat-R1, a geostationary and advanced communication satellite, has been jointly built by scientists and engineers from Suparco under the technical guidance and financial assistance from their Chinese counterpart, China National Space Administration.
He further said the satellite carries communication payload to facilitate the introduction of a range of new services, including broadband Internet, digital television broadcasting, remote and rural telephony, emergency communications, tele-education and tele-medicine.
To a question, he said the satellite has 30 transponders onboard, including 12 C band and 18 Ku band transponders. To meet the coverage requirements, Paksat-1R has advance communication antennas, covering South Asian Sub-continent, the Middle East, east Africa and part of Western European areas and cities.
Riaz said the satellite is expected to have a lifespan of 15 years, and will be operated from Suparco Satellite Ground Stations located in Lahore and Karachi.
He expressed his gratitude to the government of China for providing support to Pakistan in space technology. He expressed the confidence that co-operation between the two countries in the field of space technology, will continue to grow in the future, enabling Pakistan to reap rich benefits. He further said the services of PakSat-R1 has added a new chapter to the mutual co-operation between the all-weather allies in the field of space technology. He termed it milestone as it is for the first time that a commercial, fully capable communication satellite has been launched in which scientists and engineers of Suparco have worked very closely with the Chinese in all stages of its design and development.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.