Bangladesh's first geostationary communication satellite Bangabandhu-1 has reached its orbital slot at 119.1 degree east, 10 days after its launch from Florida, US.
"Our satellite has taken its position and is functioning normally," Md Saiful Islam, managing director of Bangladesh Communication Satellite Company Limited (BCSCL), said on Monday.
The satellite was successfully launched from the Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:14pm US time on May 11 (2:14am Bangladesh time on May 12) atop SpaceX’s Block 5 Falcon 9 rocket.
The BCSCL managing director further said: “We will now conduct a series of tests before starting commercial operation. We hope to start commercial operation with three months.”
Officials said the Bangabandhu-1 satellite would be positioned at the altitude of 36,000 kilometres from Earth and would move at the same pace as the planet.
Tajul Islam, operation engineer at Gazipur ground station, earlier said the satellite had already started sending signal to the ground station.
It will take around two months to get full control of the satellite from the ground stations located in Gazipur's Joydebpur and Rangamati's Betbunia, he added.
The Bangabandhu-1 satellite will be controlled mainly from Gazipur, while Betbunia ground station will be used as back-up.
According to the agreement, the satellite's manufacturer, Franco-Italian company Thales Alenia Space, will handle the satellite along with local engineers for the next three years. An 18-member team of local engineers has already been trained up to this end.
Bangladesh will operate the satellite at 119.1 degree east using a payload comprising 26 Ku-Band and 14 C-Band transponders to deliver focused telecommunications coverage to Bangladesh. One transponder is equivalent to 36 MHz.
Ku-band covers Bangladesh and its territorial area of the Bay of Bengal, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines. C-band covers Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and portions of Kazakhstan.
The government initiated the Bangabandhu-1 project in May 2015 and assigned Thales Alenia Space by signing a $248-million deal in November the same year.
Thales Alenia completed the construction of the satellite a few months ago and kept it in a warehouse in Cannes, France. On March 29, the satellite was moved to Florida.
The satellite has 15 years for mission life span and another three years for its design.
The satellite will offer direct-to-home (DTH) video services, e-learning, tele-medicine, family planning, farming, etc while voice service to cellular back haul and disaster recovery, and data service for internet, SCADA, SOHO as well as business-to-business VSAT connection.