16 years of Kazakhstan independence has been marked with first steps in the implementation of the National Space Programme. The project includes a new environmentally friendly launch complex “Baiterek” to be erected at Baikonur as well as a plant to process and construct space machinery for the forth-coming flight of Kazakhstan’s astronauts into space, a wide scientific bloc and others. However, today’s topical aim is the launch of a Kazakh-Russian group of satellites into orbit with the KAZSat satellite serving the country. The services that the sputnik provides are used by almost 17 thousand operators in Kazakhstan with the number of receiver having exceeded 2 thousand. Meanwhile, the main achievement is that the state’s specialists have developed complicated technologies which people in other states require decades to make.

Darkhan Maral, head of flight control department:
- It is been in flight for 545 days now. The device is within the control zone and all its systems are in order. It is managed from the ground-based complex “Akkol”. The experience that we received from our Russian colleagues is vast and now when we control it ourselves we are not worried about making mistakes. It is not a problem for us to manage it.

In case of an extraordinary situation, a reserved group of Russian specialists is on permanent duty in the Moscow suburban centre Skolkovo. Television signal broadcasting, Internet traffic, telephone and other types of communication are pass through KAZSat and it has been the first ever practical implementation of the Kazakhstan’s dream of developing space. At the end of 2009, another Republic satellite KAZSat-2 will fly into orbit with the device being now assembled in the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre of Russia.

Viktor Leifter, president, JSC Republican Space Research Centre:
- The KAZSat-2 satellite was designed after a recommendation and coordination with the major share of our colleagues from Kazakhstan. We took into consideration their opinions. We coordinated it with all the bodies in charge including the Agency for Information and Communication. As a result, we decided that the satellite will be of smaller size than the previous KAZSat-1. It will also have 15 transponders but its power will be increased along with its weight with the orbital position to be shifted as well.

Many had a skeptical attitude towards the creation of the KAZSat, but today, it can be surely stated that a complicated and risky experiment has been success.