Pakistan is expected to launch its own communication satellite by December this year. This was declared by Minister for Science and Technology Atta-ur-Rehman while addressing a press conference Thursday in Islamabad.
Atta said that by launching this satellite, “We will be able tofurther decrease the bandwidth rates as there will be a huge amount of bandwidth capability available in the country.”
The satellite would also be used for transmission of new TV channels, he added.
He said that the federal cabinet on Wednesday gave approval of acquisition of Hughes Global Systems Satellite (HGS3) as PAKSAT satellite on lease for five years with an initial cost of some 4.5million US dollars.
Another 4.6 million dollars will be payable for the next five years for operational expenses as long as the satellite remains functional, Atta added.
Atta said the satellite would be positioned at 38 degree E. This option had been necessitated to preserve Pakistan’s slot for satellite expiring on April 19, 2003, he said.
Pakistan would have lost the slot if the decision to acquire a satellite on lease had not been taken, he said, adding the decision would provide various benefits to the country’s communication system.
Atta said the initial studies of Pakistan’s needs to have its own satellite to serve the communication, strategic and other needs were carried out in 1984.
Good news. But why are they not developing it themselves? Many Pakistani scientists are world leaders in science aren’t they?
Developing your own sattelite takes time and money but will ultimately benefit your nation penny for penny as you can groom the expertise in that area. Instead of spending Rs. 1,650,000,000 (@Rs.60/$1) on leasing it, I think Pakistan should try and develop its science and technology base.
Particlulary when they had told us that they can launch any sattelite in 1 year using Shaheen, I think if they try, they can do it.
*whats up Desi/American angel devil whatever you are! on top of your post you said"you found this article interesting and then All the Best".What was that?good wish,sympathy or just your style? Hope you reply because i wanna give you a showdown here.
If all it's gonna cost is under $10MM to be use a full satellite for 5 years, it is a very very very good deal. Are you sure it is not a partial transponder rental?
While the commercial benefits are enormous, I doubt if this will be of any use militarily.
quote:
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PAK OPTS TO BUY ‘DEFECTIVE’ US SATELLITE
ISLAMABAD: American Company Hughes, which has agreed to lease its six-year-old satellite, HGS3, to Pakistan would not provide any guarantees for shifting the satellite to the orbit desired by Pakistan. No performance guarantees were being given by the US company for shifting the “defective” HGS3 satellite to 38 E orbital slot of Pakistan, Chairman of the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) Air Vice-Marshal Azhar Maud was quoted by The Dawn. PTI
"
Pakistan has been working for quite some time in this field, they launched Badr-1 which was lost in the space, after a few days, but still they have kept on working on that. As far as the scientists are concerned, in the world unfortunately only india has world class scientists.
