Specialists have restored communication with Angola’s AngoSat satellite, which was launched from the Baikonur spaceport on December 26 and obtained telemetric data from it, a source in the rocket and space industry told TASS on Thursday.

"Specialists have been able to restore communication with the AngoSat satellite and obtain telemetric data from it," the source said.

TASS has not yet received official confirmation of this information.

Telemetric data is taken on board the satellite and then automatically sent to the Earth, whereas the communication channel sends commands from the operations control center to the spacecraft.

Contact with AngoSat could have been lost because of the discharged accumulators, and the electric power was restored due to the unfolded solar batteries, a source in the Russian rocket and space industry told TASS.

"According to preliminary information, communication with AngoSat was lost because of the discharged accumulators. However, by this time the satellite had been aligned to receive the sun energy and had unfolded its solar batteries, which made it possible to gradually restore energy in the spacecraft’s electric system," he said.