Angola's first satellite "AngoSat-1" will enter orbit on December 26 at 7 p.m, after the conclusion of the satellite's integration to the launcher module, to be made via the Ukrainian rocket carrier Zenit from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

This was told on Thursday in Luanda at a press conference by the Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology, Jose Carvalho da Rocha, as the coordinator of the National Space Program.

Built by a Russian state consortium, AngoSat-1 will cover part of Africa and Europe and at least 47 Angolan aerospace engineers, trained in China, Argentina, Brazil, Japan and Russia, will guarantee the functioning of the satellite.

The AngoSat-1 project has been underway since 2012.

(Xinhua News Agency, December 21, 2017)