Russia loses contact with Angolan satellite

Russia has lost contact with Angola’s first national telecoms satellite launched from the Baikonur space pad, its maker said Wednesday — a fresh embarrassment for Moscow’s once proud space industry. The incident involving the Russian-made Angosat-1 followed a similar one in November when Russia lost contact with a weather satellite launched from a new cosmodrome in the country’s far east. Energia, Russia’s top spacecraft maker which produced the satellite for Angola, said it had reached orbit and established communication according to plan but “after a while it had stopped sending telemetry” data. More

(Source: Mail & Guardian - Dec 28)