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Russia is all set to launch the first Pakistani mini-satellite 'BADR-B' on Monday night from its Baikonur space station in Kazakhstan.
Pakistani 'BADR-B' would piggyback-ride Russian 'Meteor- 3M' weather satellite bundled with two Russian and a Moroccan-German mini-satellites on the Russian-Ukrainian 'Zenit-2' launch vehicle.
The satellite will be launched at 2348 hours (IST).
The earlier Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan had signed a $800,000 deal with Russia to launch its mini-satellite in the 1990s.
However, technical hitches delayed Islamabad's entry into the space club by about two years.
In the contract signed with Russia, Islamabad has described the tasks of its satellite in very vague terms like 'meteorological and photo survey', 'testing of the integrity of communication services', the Russian media said.
"Only later it would launch something more serious than BADR-B," the Vremya Novostyei daily said.
The daily wrote recently that Pakistan had offered $130 million to Russia for launching a spy satellite for Islamabad.
However, Moscow is said to have cold-shouldered Islamabad's offer so as not to antagonise its strategic partner India, the daily reported.
Apparently, by launching the BADR-B, Pakistan simply wants to verify whether its telecom facilities are capable of sustaining a reliable contact with the orbiting satellite.
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