Ground control station for Belintersat 1 satellite to commission on 12 April

The ground station for controlling the satellite Belintersat 1 will be officially commissioned on 12 April. Chairman of the State Defense Industries Committee Sergei Gurulev informed Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko about it on 15 February, BelTA has learned.

The ground control station is located in Dzerzhinsk District, Minsk Oblast. The personnel have been trained and are ready. The facility will be officially opened on 12 April after the satellite has gone through planned orbital tests.

Tuning and adjustment work is now in progress as part of the Belintersat 1 satellite project. All the systems are in good order. The Belarusian side will take over control over the satellite on 1 April.

The communication services that the national satellite communication and broadcasting system will provide will be in demand in Belarus and abroad. According to Alexander Lukashenko, China has already signed a contract with the Belarusian side on using 15-20% of the satellite’s capacity. “We plan to get good profits from our satellite several years down the road,” said the head of state.

Alexander Lukashenko reminded that Belarus earned the right to call itself a space power a long time ago. A satellite for the remote sensing of the Earth was launched in the past. The space imagery it provides is an article of Belarusian export.