Azerbaijan buys ‘‘space junk’’ instead of satellites
French company and one of the largest manufacturers of spacecraft in Europe “EADS Astrium” made an agreement to sell two satellites to Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani portal "Haqqin.az" reports with reference to French media.
"But the fact is that the satellites which are to be sold to Azerbaijan are quite old, and regarding the current pace of technology development, they could be totally considered "space debris," writes the portal.
As expected, the agreement of selling the two satellites will be signed during the visit of French President Francois Hollande to Baku, which is planned to be held on May 10-11.
The site also notes that according to “Intelligence online”, EADS Astrium has already managed to sell two old satellites to Kazakhstan. These satellites are designed for remote sensing of the earth and are able to locate objects up to 1 meter. Despite the fact that the Kazakh side was proposed satellites that could locate objects up to 70 cm, preference was given to the old satellites of EADS Astrium.
After buying these satellites, it was found out that the French company had offered the UAE to buy apparatus detecting accuracy of objects up to 50 cm. This almost caused a loud political scandal in Kazakhstan, where many experts noted that there was a corruption factor present during the conclusion of these transactions, writes "Haqqin.az."
In February 2013 from Kourou space centre in French Guiana, the first telecommunications satellite of Azerbaijan called "Azerspace-1" was launched. According to the Ministry of Communications of Azerbaijan, total cost of satellite inputs was 202 million dollars.