Disproving all rumours and speculations a marvel has happened to Bangladesh's communications history with the Bangabandhu-1, the country's maiden satellite making its journey successfully from a US space station, to the cheers of Bangladeshis and thousands watching the launching from near the kick off field. Bangladesh can now take the pride of entering the space age.
This has brought Bangladesh, once labeled as "bottomless busket" to the level of world's fastest developing nations, especially in terms of latest and most sophisticated communication methods and methodologies. Bangladesh from this moment can claim to be at par with rest of world's developing countries at one more field and thus opened the doors to a brighter future in the
sky, with its benefits sending from the space down to the earth. The nation is proud of this achievement and greets Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who has been pushing this BB Satellite project for years and finally made her dream comes true. This new era adds more glory to the name and fame of her father and our Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Taking Bangladesh to the highest communication level is also a dream of her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy, who is the PM's Information Technology Adviser and pioneer to make Bangladesh a fully digitalized state. The success to his efforts and of his mother have been "spectacular" just to speak in the briefest word that even their enemies admit though with certain amount of envy.
Bangladesh has now occupied its slot in the orbital space. With the launch of Bangabandhu-1, Bangladesh became the 57th country in the world and fourth in South Asia -- after India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka -- to have its own satellite in space. The Falcon-9 rocket of SpaceX propelled the satellite into space at 2:14am Bangladesh time on Saturday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Within minutes after the launch, the rocket went through Max-Q, which according to SpaceX is the time the rocket starts pushing against the atmosphere the hardest. The first stage of the rocket separated moments later and the second stage took over to send the satellite hundreds of kilometres above the earth's surface.
Around eight and a half minutes later, the first stage returned to earth and landed on the recovery vessel 'Of Course I Still Love You' on the Atlantic Ocean, 340 nautical miles away from the launch pad. In a message minutes after successful launching of BB-1 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said, "With this we entered a new era." She thanked the satellite building and launching company, the governments and people of the US and France for their help. She also thanked Russia for renting its orbital slot to Bangladesh.
Once the satellite becomes active at its orbital slot, it will be controlled from three stations in the US, Italy, and South Korea for about a month. It will be controlled and maintained from ground stations in Gazipur and Rangamati later on.Speaking about the benefits of the satellite, project officials said it would immensely contribute to the digital advancement of the country.
Currently, Bangladesh meets its demand for satellite connectivity by renting bandwidth from foreign operators, which costs the country about $14 million a year. Bangabandhu-1 could save the foreign currency and its unused capacity could also be rented to other nations. State owned Bangladesh Communication Satellite Company Ltd will operate the business of the Bangabandhu-1 and has already started the process of renting out capacity to Indonesia and the Philippines.Two other countries also are on the list of prospective buyers, said an official of the telecommunications ministry.
The satellite will mostly cover South Asian countries and Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkestan and a part of Kazakhistan. Bangabandhu-1, which costs Tk 2,765.66 crore, is expected to improve the Direct-to-Home (D2H) service, making people's access to worldwide TV entertainment easier. It will have 40 transponders -- 26 Ku band and 14 C band -- and a number of them will be used for broadcasting TV channels.
It will take another 11 days for the satellite to settle into its orbital slot.
But the ground stations in Gazipur and Betbunia have successfully received initial test signals from Bangabandhu-1, country's first communications satellite, after its successful deployment to geostationary orbit, State Minister for ICT Junaid Ahmed Palak has confirmed. This has again proved that Bangladesh has the strong resolve to achieve what it intends and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government pursues missions.
There are more than 750 union parishads in the country with no internet connectivity and BB-1 can ensure broadband internet. It can now provide the nation with dedicated emergency telecommunication services during natural disasters if all other services go offline. Bangabandhu-1 will also be a crucial tool for surveillance and ensuring national security and will be a huge stride towards digitisation.
The launch process has two phases. The first is the Launch and Early Orbit Phase which will take 10 days and the second phase is Satellite in Orbit that takes 20 days. Bangladesh began its venture into space in 2008 when Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission sought allocation of orbital slot 102 east from the International Telecommunication Union for launching its own satellite.
The BTRC in 2013 negotiated with the Russian-Intersputnik and rented the 119.1 east orbital slot for Tk 221 crore for 15 years. Bangladesh will be able to send three more satellites to the same slot. Bangladesh has also sought allocation for 69 degree east and 135 degree east. The BTRC in November, 2015, signed a deal with French company Thales Alenia Space to build the satellite within December 16, 2017.
Initially, the launch was scheduled for Victory Day 2017. However, it was postponed until March this year after Hurricane Irma and subsequent floods hit Florida. The launch had been delayed eight times. But finally the dream came true at 2014 AM on Saturday reimagining the country's future and reimaging Bangladesh's status in the world.
