Turkey’s transport, maritime and communications minister has confirmed negotiations have begun with Airbus for the development of Türksat 5A and 5B.
Ahmet Arslan said submissions had also been received from MELCO and SSL, but that the French-British partnership had submitted the most favourable bid. “Our goal is to end the price negotiations this month, sign the contract and to start production of the satellites immediately. Airbus has given the most suitable bid to make the best business alliance with us in order to launch our country’s domestic and national satellite, Türksat 6A. We aim to send Türksat 5A in 2020 and Türksat 5B in 2021 to space.”
Its planned that Türksat will provide Turkey with its own capacity at 31 degrees East, where a satellite is currently leased from Eutelsat.
Türksat 5A will be launched in 2020 and Türksat 5B will follow a year later.
Separately, Türksat 6A will launch in 2020.
Between them the new spacecraft will take the number of satellites operated by Turkey from 3 to 6.