18 August 2024
Azercosmos, Azerbaijan’s space agency, and the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana have announced a new partnership, described as a ‘new milestone in connectivity’, to launch satellite services in Botswana.
Under this long-term agreement, the Botswana government agency will utilise data services provided via the Azerspace-1 telecommunication satellite. This marks the inaugural provision of satellite data services to Botswana via the African C-band coverage on the Azerspace-1 satellite.
Azercosmos says it currently supplies satellite services to nearly half of the 13 countries in Southern Africa. This collaboration with Botswana, it suggests, will enhance the deployment of Azerspace satellite services in large-scale data projects across Southern Africa.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana (CAAB) is responsible for the regulation and development of air transport, providing air navigation services, managing airports and advising the government on all aspects of civil aviation. It is not clear how it will use the data services enabled by Azercosmos.
C-band has been a theme of a number of Azercosmos announcements in recent years. In 2022 we reported that Azercosmos and teleport and data centre facility Signalhorn had entered into a partnership agreement to provide what were described as uninterrupted, secure and high-quality satellite services throughout Africa via the C-band capacity on the Azerspace-1 satellite.
In late 2021 an agreement was announced with Malaysian operator Measat Satellite Systems, under which Azercosmos intended to utilise the C-band capacity of the Azerspace-1 satellite to provide satellite services throughout the African region.
C-band was the first frequency band allocated for commercial telecommunications via satellites. It performs better under adverse weather conditions than some other frequencies. However, it requires very big receiving antennas.
