Indonesia’s expensive lost satellite
August 8, 2012
By Chris Forrester
Indonesia’s Telkom says its lost satellite will cost it around $200 million. The craft (Telkom-3) was placed into a useless low orbit late on Monday when the final stage of a Russian launch rocket failed to operate correctly. Russia’s space ministry (Roscosmos) has suspended all operations from the launch site at Baikonur pending a full investigation.
The Briz-M stage burned only for 7 seconds, instead of a planned total of 18 minutes.
One initial comment put out by Russia’s International News Agency (Novosti) said that the prospects for Telcom-3 and the other lost satellite, Express MD2, were very poor.
Indonesia’s Telkom has declined to say whether their satellite was insured. However, Novosti says the Indonesian satellite was insured for only $7.1 million although it is unclear whether this covers all elements of the satellite’s cost and/or launch bill.
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