Work starts on new Ka band HTS satellite for Indonesia: PSN-VI

Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN) in association with Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (KOMINFO) have initiated work on a big new geostationary HTS satellite operating in Ka band to provide satellite internet services to the Indonesian area. At an orbit location of 146 deg east I expect it will have very many tiny spot beams.  It will provide services to Schools, Hospitals and Government offices as well as underserved remote areas. Capacity 150 Gbit/s.

Thales Alenia Space has been engaged as the prime contractor for the project. Two teleports will be constructed, main and backup and many Indonesian staff will be recruited and trained.

More details and large artists image here:

SATRIA press release by Thales Alenia Space

This announcement above follows a Long March 3B launch failure on 9th April 2020 attempting to launch Palapa N1 (cost $220,000,000 capacity 20×36MHz C-band FSS and 9.5Gbps Kaand HTS). That Palapa N1 satellite was intended to replace Palapa-D satellite at 113 East orbit position.