A new national communications satellite built by Thales Alenia Space – a joint venture between French and Italian defence primes – for Indonesia was successfully launched via a SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle from Cape Canaveral in Florida, the company announced on 19 June.
According to Thales Alenia Space, SATRIA-1 (SAteliT Republik IndonesiA) is a very-high-throughput satellite (VHTS) designed to offer a throughput of 150 Gbps, enabling high speed internet access for military, government and public facilities across the thousands of islands in the Indonesian archipelago not already connected by existing terrestrial or satellite systems.
The company also noted that SATRIA-1 will be the first VHTS communications satellite in Indonesia and the “most powerful” in the Southeast Asia region. The Ka-band satellite has a launch mass of 4.6 tons and will be positioned and operated in orbit at 146° E for a design life of 15 years.
Thales Alenia Space was selected to build SATRIA-1 by the Satelit Nusantara Tiga (SNT) consortium on behalf of the Indonesian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Kominfo).
The satellite is based on the company’s all-electric Spacebus NEO platform and features a fifth-generation digital processor. The company also supplied two satellite control centres, comprising a main and a backup facility, and the mission ground segment for the all-digital payload.
In addition, Thales Alenia Space has set up a complete training program for SNT engineers. The company stated that some engineers have already joined the project team at the company’s facilities in Cannes and Toulouse for the duration of the programme.
Indonesian officials have also noted that SATRIA-1 is expected to commence operations by November, following a series of calibration and test activities.
by Jr Ng
