02.17.2013 Azerbaijan. "From here we will face the Swedes"
On February 8, 2013 from the Guiana Space Centre of the
Space center of the French Guiana located in South America, the first national artificial
telecommunication satellite of Azerbaijan of "Azerspace-1" is put to
geostationary orbit. Made by the American company Orbital Sciences, the
Azerspace-1 satellite is put to orbit by means of the carrier rocket of the
French company "Arianne Space". Term of operation of the
satellite is 15 years. Its weight is 3 250 kg. The
satellite with transponder of C-band and Ku-band is urged to provide with
broadcasting services Azerbaijan, Central Asia, the countries of Europe and
Africa. 20% of resources of the satellite will be used by Azerbaijan, and
other 80% of opportunities will be used for commercial purposes. Conditional agreements on acquisition of 40% of the Azerspace resources are
already concluded.
According to the press release of company “Azermarka” on
January 15, 2013 is introduced into post circulation of Azerbaijan a postge block
devoted to the start to orbit of the first telecommunication Azerspace-1
satellite. However, actually the first information from "Azermarka"
about the edition of the postage block appeared only on February 12 of the
current year. Up to this point officials stored sacral silence and issue wasn't
announced. Bearing in mind the failure which has happened to the Belarusian
communication satellite "BelKA" when because of unfortunate start of
the spacecraft the Belarusian post had to cancel urgently presentation of issue
and to withdraw all edition of the printed stamp from sale, the Azerbaijani
mail was reinsured and declared the block edition only a month later after its
official input in the circulation.
Artist: Khassay Mirzoev Paper:
chalky. Printing: offset. Perforation: comb. 14 Size of
stamps in Block: 40 x 28 mm Size of Block: 108 x 82 mm. Edition: 20.000
copies including 50 copies of the imperforated block.
P.S. A sad story about the cancelled issue of the Belarusian
stamp "BelKA" website "UkraFil" told in news of
January 2 and on February 12, 2012.