Indonesia’s Pasifik Satelit Nusantara has ordered a satellite from Space Systems Loral to take the place of a planned all-electric bird that it announced last year with Boeing.
The satellite, named once again as PSN VI, will have C-band and Ku-band…
Indonesia’s Pasifik Satelit Nusantara has ordered a satellite from Space Systems Loral to take the place of a planned all-electric bird that it announced last year with Boeing.
The satellite, named once again as PSN VI, will have C-band and Ku-band transponders for services across South East Asia, and also a high throughput payload that will target Indonesia.
SatelliteFinance understands that SpaceX has been lined up to launch it in early 2017 to 146E as part of the deal, although a firm contract for that has yet to be secured. PSN VI will now be based on SSL’s 1300 satellite platform, rather than Boeing’s 702SP, and is also thought to be seeking export credit agency support to help fund it.
SSL declined to comment.
It comes nearly a year after PSN announced it had ordered an all-electric bird from Boeing, which was set to be the first satellite that it would fully own and also targeted the same 146E slot.
Around 70% of that satellite’s US$200m cost was due to be funded through loans from the US Ex-Im Bank, with the rest coming from the operator’s own resources, reported local media citing PSN president director Adi Rahman Adiwoso after he announced the contract in December.
PSN had said the Boeing bird would be launched in mid-2016 and, like the SSL spacecraft, it was due to have C-band and Ku-band transponders, as well as an HTS payload.
However, the operator is thought to have dropped those plans after failing to find another all-electric satellite to launch with it on the same rocket. The ability to launch two lightweight all-electric birds on a single rocket is one of the biggest advantages of the technology, because it lowers launch costs.
Boeing had been aiming to pair PSN up with another operator to follow on from its landmark deal in early 2012 with ABS and what is now Eutelsat Americas. Their two all-electric satellites were successfully conjoined recently in preparation for a launch early next year.
But some operators have been waiting to see how Boeing’s new platform performs in orbit before committing to an all-electric satellite, while analysts have pointed to the difficulty of finding two customers with spending and launch plans that are suitably aligned to carry out a joint mission.
Boeing declined to comment. PSN was unable to comment before the press deadline.
The Indonesian operator claims to be the country’s first private satellite telecoms company. According to the group’s website, its largest shareholder is local telecoms incumbent Telkom, which is majority-owned by the state and also has its own space assets. Telkom has a 24.4% stake, followed by Malaysian investment firm Magic Alliance Labuan with 24.1%. US-based Hughes and Canada’s Telesat are also shareholders.
Indonesia’s domestic market is becoming increasingly crowded as operators look to take advantage of rising disposable incomes and a geography that lends itself to satellite services.
Telkom ordered a satellite in July from Thales Alenia Space, targeting a launch at the end of 2016 to 118E with Arianespace. Earlier in the year the country’s state-owned Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) became the first bank in the world to order a communications satellite. It ordered a bird from SSL to launch to 150.5E in 2016 – the same location that local operator Indosat was eyeing when it bought a satellite last year from Orbital Sciences.
