Russian space agency Sunday launched a telecommunications satellite into orbit

<


Russia launches telecom satellite

The Russian space agency Sunday launched a telecommunications satellite into orbit from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.

A Proton-M carrier rocket launched the Sirius 4 Ku/Ka-band satellite, which has a 15-year service life and carries 54 active transponders covering Europe and Africa, RIA Novosti reported.

"At the designated time (10:53 a.m. Moscow time), the foreign spacecraft separated from the Briz-M booster, went into orbit and control of it has been transferred to the customer," the Russian space agency Roskosmos said.

The launch followed the lifting of a ban imposed by Kazakhstan following a Sept. 6 crash of another Proton-M rocket.
The Baikonur space center is the oldest and largest operational space center and leased by the Kazakh government to Russia until 2050.

Iran commissions Russia to build telecom satellite
Iran has signed a deal with a Russian firm to build a telecommunications satellite at an estimated cost of $132 million, newspapers said on Monday. The Zohreh (Venus) satellite, scheduled to be launched within 30 months, will improve radio and television coverage, assist communications in remote areas of the country and enhance Internet service, the Sharq newspaper said. “Russia’s Avia Export Company will build the satellite,” the newspaper quoted Communications and Communication Technology Minister Ahmad Motamedi as saying. Specific details of the satellite were not disclosed and the paper did not say where the satellite would be launched from