AOneSat Communications AG, promoted by the Hyderabad-based, Ananth Technologies and INDEN Group, Switzerland has signed up with ISS-Reshetnev, a leading supplier of spacecraft and related technologies from Russia to build a telecom satellite.

The AOneSat-1 telecommunications spacecraft will be built by ISS-Reshetnev around its middle-class Express-1000H satellite platform. The communications and TV broadcasting spacecraft to cover the territory of Latin America is expected to be launched in 2016 and carry out its mission in orbit for 15 years.

AOneSat, a global satellite operator will integrate the satellite system. It has also tied up with Thales Alenia Space, the European Aerospace company for the transponders and the Russian Photon launch vehicle. The satellite will be launched from the Baikanour cosmodrome, SubbaRao Pavuluri, President of the company told Business Line.

The agreement was signed by Nikolay Testoyedov, general designer and general director of ISS-Reshetnev and Subba Rao in Russia recently. Also present were Oleg Frolov, first deputy head of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Vaibhav Abhayankar, executive director of AOneSat.

Headquartered in Krasnoyarsk region, ISS-Reshetnev embodies ten Russian space technology companies and employs around 14,000 people. In the last 50 years it has built over 1,200 satellites and put into operation more than 40 space systems.

AOneSat Communications AG was founded in 2009 to meet the growing demand of satellite broadcast and telecommunications service providers in different parts of the globe. Ananth Technologies has been an important supplier of critical components for the Indian Space Research Organisation for its satellite programme.

>Somasekhar.m@thehindu.co.in

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