ASTANA. Dec 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Kazakhstan's second telecommunications satellite, KazSat-2, will cover Kazakhstan, Central Asia, the South Caucasus and some countries in the Middle East, Vice President of the Republican Center for Space Communications and Electromagnetic Compatibility of Radio-electronic Equipment Gabdullatif Murzakulov told Interfax-AVN.
"The KazSat-2 will cover Central Asia, the whole South Caucasus and, partially, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iraq and Iran," he said.
The Moscow-based Khrunichev Aerospace Center won the tender for building KazSat-2 this September. The project costs $115 million and has a proposed launch date of June-August 2009.
KazSat-1, which was also a Khrunichev product, was launched from Baikonur this June.
Murzakulov did not specify technical characteristics of the future satellite.
"I can only say that this satellite will be more powerful than KazSat-1 and have a denser spectrum of frequencies. We will also enlarge the number of transponders to 14-16," he said.
In contrast to KazSat-1, the new satellite will be able to transmit television signals to individual satellite dishes, he said.