MOSCOW, October 9 – Novosti. The Proton-M rocket with the DM-03 upper stage, which will launch the AngoSat-2 telecommunications satellite for Angola, was taken out of the assembly and test complex and installed on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Roscosmos said on Sunday.
“On Sunday, October 9, 2022, the Proton-M space rocket with the Angolan telecommunications spacecraft AngoSat-2, created by an enterprise of the Roscosmos State Corporation, was transported to the launch complex of the 81st site of the Baikonur Cosmodrome,” the report says. .
The rocket was installed in a vertical position, and specialists at the launch complex began preparing it for launch. The launch date has not been specified.
The Proton-M rocket was manufactured by the Khrunichev Center , the upper stage DM-03 was manufactured by the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation ( RKK ) named after Korolev, the AngoSat-2 spacecraft was manufactured by the Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems company. All three enterprises are part of Roskosmos.
In April 2018, Russia and Angola agreed to build AngoSat-2 to replace AngoSat-1, communication with which was lost shortly after the device entered orbit at the end of 2017. The creation of the second satellite was initially entrusted to the enterprise where the first apparatus was built – RSC Energia, but in May 2020 it became known that, at the request of the Angolan side, this work was transferred to the Reshetnev ISS .
