China successfully launched a domestically produced communications satellite for Nigeria on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Long March 3-B rocket carrying the Nigerian Communication Satellite, or NIGCOMSAT-1, blasted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the south-western province of Sichuan just after midnight, Xinhua said.
The geo-stationary satellite had entered its orbit ”accurately” and would offer telecommunications, broadcasting and broadband multimedia services for Africa throughout the next 15 years, it added.
China was awarded the $311-million deal in 2004 after it outbid 21 international rivals, Xinhua said, calling it the first time a foreign buyer had purchased both a Chinese-made satellite and its launching service.
The satellite would create more than 150 000 jobs in Nigeria, save broadband users and phone users hundreds of millions of dollars a year and provide internet access to remote rural villages in the country, it quoted unnamed experts as saying.
The satellite would change positions in orbit before being finally fixed at a longitude of 42 degrees east to operate in Africa, parts of the Middle East and southern Europe.
China has an ambitious space programme. In 2003, it became only the third country — after the former Soviet Union and the United States — to launch a man into space aboard its own rocket.
In October 2005, Beijing sent two men into orbit and plans a space walk by 2008. China has been commissioned to send about 30 foreign satellites into space, according to Xinhua. – Reuters