Fate of Palapa-C1 satellite still unclear

Fate of Palapa-C1 satellite still unclear

JAKARTA (JP): The European consortium Arianespace, which last
year failed to launch two satellites, is still unable to confirm
the launching of Indonesia's Palapa-C1 satellite scheduled for
November.

Janetta Nizar, an executive of Sudarto & Noeradi Public
Relations Counselors, Arianespace's media relations firm in
Indonesia, told The Jakarta Post yesterday that even though the
consortium successfully placed two satellites into orbit recently
and will launch two more satellites later this month, it has not
assured the Palapa-C1's launching as demanded by the Indonesian
government.

The executive said that Arianespace is still considering the
schedule for the launching of the Palapa-C1.

PT Satelindo, the operator of the Indonesian satellites from
the Palapa-C generation, selected Arianespace in 1993 to place
Palapa-C1 into orbit. Arianespace, a consortium of French
Aerospatiale, British Aerospace, Dutch Fokker Space and Systems
and German Deutsche Aerospace, rescheduled Palapa-C1's launching
from November this year to next February or May due to its double
launching failures last year.

Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave
visited Arianespace last month to discuss the Palapa-C1 launching
schedule.

In January last year, Arianespace's flight 63 failed to launch
the Turksat-1A and the Eutelsat-2. In the following month,
Arianespace's flight 70 failed again to launch the American
Panamsat.

However, Arianespace was successful on March 28 in its flight
71 launching of the Brasilsat-B2 owned by Embratel of Brazil and
Hot Bird-1, the first television broadcast satellite of the
European organization, Eutelsat.

Flight 72 is scheduled on April 21 to carry the European Space
Agency's ERS-2 remote sensing spacecraft into the sun-synchronous
orbit.

The Indonesian government wants the Palapa-C1 to be launched
in October or November 1995 on flight 85, as originally planned.

Deutsche Telekom

Meanwhile, Satelindo, which operates satellites as well as
international and digital cellular telecommunications services,
signed in Hannover, Germany, yesterday an agreement on the
acquisition of 25 percent of its shares by Deutsche Telekom
Mobilfunk (DeTeMobil), the analog and digital cellular
telecommunications operator affiliated with Germany's Deutsche
Telekom.

The agreement, signed during the Hannover Fair 1995, was the
follow-up of the signing here last month of a draft accord on the
share acquisition. The closing document of the agreement is
scheduled to be signed today in Bonn in the presence of President
Soeharto, Joop Ave, State Minister for Research and Technology
B.J. Habibie and German Minister of Post and Telecommunications
Wolfgang Boetsch.

The agreement finalizes DeTeMobil's acquisition of the 25
percent stake of Satelindo at US$586 million. After the
acquisition, Satelindo will be 45 percent owned by PT Bima Graha
Telekomindo -- a firm equally owned by the Bimantara and Artha
Graha groups -- 22.5 percent by the state-owned domestic
telecommunications operator PT Telkom and 7.5 percent by PT
Indosat, another state-owned telecommunications service provider.
(icn)