WASHINGTON — Indonesia’s Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN) said March 23 it has ordered a high-throughput satellite from Boeing to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 in 2023.
The Nusantara Lima Satellite aims to deliver 160 gigabits per second (Gbps) of capacity across the Indonesian archipelago and surrounding countries.
PSN said the satellite will augment capacity on the SATRIA-1 satellite Thales Alenia Space is building for a launch in 2023, which together would make it one of the biggest satellite capacity providers in Asia.
“This project shows that despite the pandemic situation, the acceleration of digital transformation continues to be developed in providing connectivity across the Indonesian Archipelago,” said Johnny G. Plate, Indonesia’s Minister of Communications and Informatics.
Plate said Nusantara Lima Satellite will provide 140 Gbps of capacity over Indonesia.
About 80 Gbps will be used by BAKTI, an Indonesian government agency, for what it calls Hot Backup Satellite (HBS) to deliver services to remote places in Indonesia where terrestrial communications are unavailable.
Plate said “the balance of 20 Gbps will be serving Malaysia and the Philippines.”
Boeing, which delivered Indonesia’s first telecoms satellite Palapa A1 in 1976, said the satellite will be based on its 702MP platform.
Kratos and Hughes Network Systems are among the ground segment suppliers for the Nusantara Lima network, PSN said.
Thales Alenia Space announced Oct. 28 it is building another Indonesian satellite dubbed HTS 113BT for Telkomsat, a subsidiary of Indonesian state-owned telecoms operator Telkom, for a 2024 delivery.
HTS 113BT aims to fill a gap left by the loss of the Nusantara-2 satellite in a 2020 Chinese launch failure.
