'Sputnik', 'Voyager', 'Mariner' and 'Galileo' are the sort of names space probes and satellites should have – especially for a country's first domestic foray into earth orbit! Mongolia's first satellite is called simply ‘Monsat-1’!  The satellite was launched by Mongolian ‘MongolSat Networks’ company in cooperation with ‘ABS’ (Asia Broadcast Satellite) without fanfare on 21^st of January.

The Satellite has 12×27 megahertz capacity and it will used for delivering television programming to Mongolian consumers.

Mongolia does, of course, have a proud history in space: in 1981, J.Gurragchaa spent over a week on the Soviet Salyut 6 Space Station and completed 124 orbits. Major General J.Gurragchaa was given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He later served as Mongolia's Defence Minister.