Pashinian said that the apparently small satellite was carried into space by a SpaceX rocket that blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Wednesday.
“Photographs to be taken by the satellite will be used in Armenia for border control, prevention and management of emergencies, environmental protection, including climate change monitoring, urban development, road construction, geology, and other purposes,” he told a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
Pashinian said the satellite launch was the result of “cooperation” between the state-run Armenian company Geocosmos and Satlantis, a Spanish firm that specializes in the production of small satellites and cameras for them.
He did not reveal financial terms of the deal or technical parameters of the satellite, photographs of which were released by the Armenian government’s press office.
Armenia had first announced plans to launch its first commercial satellite after holding talks with Russia’s Federal Space Agency in 2012. A year later, a senior official from the country’s former government said Yerevan hopes to attract private investments in the project worth as much as $250 million. The project never materialized.
Pashinian did not explain why his administration opted for a different, more small-scale space project and contracted Western, rather than Russian, companies to implement it.
Armenia’s arch-foe Azerbaijan launched its first communication and observation satellite into space in 2013. The Azerbaijani army reportedly used satellite images for its offensive military operations carried out during the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.