The start of work on building the new Satellite of the Republic of Indonesia (SATRIA) is reported to be imminent.
It’s been just over a year since the announcement that Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology had selected a consortium led by the domestic satellite operator Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN) to deploy and operate a broadband telecommunication satellite.
Construction of SATRIA is now set to start this month, according to PSN. Thales Alenia Space is designing and manufacturing the satellite.
The full Ka-band SATRIA satellite will carry more than 150 gigabits per second over Indonesia and will use very high throughput satellite (VHTS) technology. The hope is that SATRIA will connect around 145,000 areas including 90,000 schools and 40,000 hospitals and public buildings as well as regional government sites not linked by existing satellite or terrestrial infrastructure.
The total investment in the project, estimated at about $550 million, will be financed by HSBC, Banco Santander, and Korea Development Bank. A portion of the investment will be funded by the PSN consortium’s capital.
As well as building and fitting the satellite and a number of support systems and backup, Thales Alenia Space has been involved in putting in place a complete training programme for PSN engineers.