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)