Telkom selects U.S. firm to build its new satellite

Telkom selects U.S. firm to build its new satellite

BANDUNG, West Java (JP): State-owned PT Telkom has selected
Hughes Space and Communications Company of the United States to
build its new 24-transponder satellite.

Company president Asman A Nasution said here Thursday the new
satellite, to be used only by Telkom, would be launched in the
middle of next year to replace the Palapa-B2R.

The Palapa-B2R, launched in April 1990, operates at 108 degree
east longitude but is expected to expire in March next year.

Nasution said the planned 24-transponder satellite would be
the same bus or type with the Palapa-B2R, one of the four Palapa-
B satellite series operated by Telkom.

He said the next step was to select a firm to launch the
satellite.

"We are now in the tendering process in which five firms are
participating. But you don't have to know the participants," he
said at the ISO Guide-25 certification award ceremony for
Telkom's test house research division.

The Palapa-B is a HS-376 type with two telescoping cylindrical
solar panels and an antenna that folds for compactness during
launch. The antenna is erected and the outer solar panel extended
after the satellite is in orbit.

The 24 transponders on the satellite can each carry 1,000 two-
way voice circuits or color television transmission. In addition,
the Palapa-B satellite carries six spare traveling-wave tube
amplifiers, providing a five-to-four redundancy.

The Palapa-B satellites operate on the C-band, receiving from
5.92 GHz to 6.41 GHz and transmitting from 3.7 GHz to 4.4 GHz.
The satellites use 10-watt traveling-wave tube amplifiers.

Telkom, having operated two Palapa-A satellites and two
Palapa-B satellites, now operates the Palapa-B2R and Palapa-B4
satellites. The Palapa-B4, launched in May 1992, is expected to
expire in April 2003.

After handing over the commercial satellite business in 1993
to PT Satelindo which now operates two Palapa-C series, Telkom
regained in 1995 the rights to operate satellites but only for
its own purposes.

The Palapa-A, Palapa-B and Palapa-C generation satellites were
made by Hughes, one of the world's leading satellite makers. The
association between Indonesia and Hughes started in 1975.

Telkom and Satelindo also cooperate in a satellite project
expected to be the biggest in Indonesia.

Telkom's test house research division won the ISO Guide-25
certificate from the British National Accreditation for
Measurement and Sampling/United Kingdom Accreditation Services
(NAMAS/UKAS) Thursday.

The certificate, presented by NAMAS's chairman Bryan Smith to
Telkom's research division chief Suryatin Setiawan, was the first
such award given to an Indonesian telecommunications test house.

Suryatin said the accreditation would allow domestic producers
intending to penetrate foreign markets to use NAMAS/UKAS
standards.

"This is a kind of side effect as our major job is to support
Telkom," he said.

NAMAS/UKAS has applied three procedural steps: quality policy
statement, global procedure and working document/working
instruction. (ahy/icn)