The first private-sector communications satellite for Africa, Intelsat New Dawn, was scheduled to be launched on Wednesday at 23:45 South African time (21:45 GMT), but the launch of the rocket carrying the satellite was aborted prior to liftoff when an automated checkout stopped the launch sequence before ignition of the solid boosters.

The rocket will be returned to the final assembly building for diagnostics.

New Dawn is a joint venture between the global Intelsat satellite communications group and an African consortium led by South Africa’s Convergence Partners.

The satellite carries 28 C-band and 24 Ku-Band 36 megaHerz transponder units and will be positioned above the equator at 32,8 ˚ East longtitude. It will cover the whole of Africa, part of Europe, some of the Middle East and Pakistan.

Customers already signed up for New Dawn include Vodacom, Telecom Namibia and Bharti Airtel, and most of the satellite’s capacity has already been sold.

The satelllite is intended to meet the rapidly growing demand in Africa – the continent’s market for satellite communications services had been growing at an average rate of 7% annually for the past four years.

Indeed, Africa was the fastest growing region in the world for Intelsat during for 2008 and 2009, and the continent’s business is now worth some $400-million a year to the global group.

Probably the single most important factor in this growth has been the development of cellular telephony across the continent, with satellites being used to provide what is called backhaul services – basically, linking remote base stations to more centrally located master stations.

Intelsat New Dawn has been funded with a mixture of equity (15%) and debt (85%). Of the equity, 74,9% is held by Intelsat and 25,1% by a consortium headed by Convergence Partners, which includes Altirah Telecoms and the not-for-profit Convergence Partners Foundation.

Regarding the debt, 10% of the financing comes from Intelsat and 90% from African institutions, including Nedbank, the African Development Bank and South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation.

The launch vehicle for the satellite is Arianespace’s Ariane 5 ECA rocket, using the Kourou launch complex in French Guiana in South America. New Dawn will be one of two satellites on the rocket, the other being YahSat 1, for a Middle Eastern client.