POSTS and Telecoms Minister Jay Naidoo said on Wednesday that South Africa is on track to launch a satellite programme that will see it own and operate its own regional communications satellite. He said that South Africa — through the various users of satellite facilities, such as Telkom, Sentech, Transtel and Orbicom — spends between R450-million and R550-million annually on leasing satellite time. It is the 18th largest user of Intelsat services in the world, Naidoo said. He said he hopes to make an announcement in April about a major initiative in satellite technology training.