Indonesia’s Telkom-3S ready for launch
January 18, 2017
By Chris Forrester
Telkom-3S will be launched next month from French Guiana aboard an Arianespace rocket.
Worth about $200 million, the new satellite, built by Thales Alenia, is badly needed and replaces Indonesia’s Telkom-3 which was stranded in an unusable orbit after launch in August 2012.
That Telkom-3 satellite was built and launched by Russian companies and its failure caused severe ramifications in Russia with President Putin dismissing the head of rocket builder Khrunichev which had supplied the Briz-M upper stage.
This replacement satellite will go to 118 degrees East, and supply DTH and HD TV channels to Indonesia’s viewers and residents in Southeast Asia and Malaysia.