The government of Armenia is reportedly in talks with Russian space agency Roscosmos about ordering its first telecoms satellite.
Tigran Sarkisian, the Prime Minister of Armenia, met visiting Roscosmos officials on 24 April to discuss ways to cooperate…
The government of Armenia is reportedly in talks with Russian space agency Roscosmos about ordering its first telecoms satellite.
Tigran Sarkisian, the Prime Minister of Armenia, met visiting Roscosmos officials on 24 April to discuss ways to cooperate on a commercial spacecraft, according to local reports citing a brief statement from the Armenian government.
However, the country has yet to register the proposals with the International Telecommunication Union, a key part of the process, a spokesman for the regulatory body told SatelliteFinance.
Roscosmos and the Armenian government were unable to discuss details about the reported plan, including how it could be funded.
The move would be the first time the Armenian government has publicly expressed an interest in owning its own satellite. It would also follow a spate of relatively small countries looking to acquire their own telecoms spacecraft, rather than leasing capacity from other operators.
Most recently, in April the government of Afghanistan announced it was inviting bids from investors to help construct and launch the country’s first satellite. Around the same time, Bangladesh said it was ready to launch a bidding process to construct its debut bird, to be called Bangabandhu-1.
Meanwhile a number of other countries, including Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and the Ukraine, are already constructing their first satellites.
