Chinese rocket lifted with Algerian telecommunications satellite

Almaty. December 11. Silkroadnews - Chinese rocket lifted with Algerian telecommunications satellite, specialized information portal Spaceflight now reported.
“A Chinese-built telecom satellite for Algeria successfully launched Sunday aboard a Long March 3B rocket, heading toward a perch more than 22,000 miles over the equator to provide television broadcasts, broadband Internet, remote education and emergency communications services,” the report said.
The press service of the Algerian government reported on successful launch and said the Alcomsat 1 spacecraft was injected into an elliptical “supersynchronous” transfer orbit arcing as high as 26,100 miles (42,000 kilometers) above Earth. Alcomsat 1 will move on its orbit over the equator in the next two weeks and after that it will reach the geostationary orbit over the equator at 24.8 degrees west longitude. In this orbit, the velocity of the spacecraft will match the Earth’s rotation rate, allowing the Alcomsat 1 to be in the same position in the sky for fixed terrestrial antennas.
According to the Chinese corporation Great Wall Industry Corp. the spacecraft Alcomsat 1 is based on the DFH-4 satellite manufactured by the China Academy of Space Technology.
“The Alcomsat 1 satellite program is the first communications satellite program of Algeria, and also (marks) the bilateral cooperation between Algeria and China in space technology for the first time. The successful launch of Alcomsat 1 is the good beginning of space cooperation between (the) two countries. More cooperation (and) more space programs are expected to be initiated soon,” the report said.
China Great Wall Industry Corp. and the Algeria Space Agency signed the Alcomsat 1 contract in December 2013. Chinese engineers were responsible for the construction, launching and testing of Alcomsat 1 in orbit, and the Algerian authorities will take charge of the satellite when it is ready to begin communications services.
China has launched similar communications satellites under contracts with the governments of Nigeria, Venezuela, Pakistan, Bolivia, Belarus and Laos. Future Chinese-built geostationary telecommunications satellites are being built for Nicaragua and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and will be launched next year.