The Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information has prepared a backup for the Satria-1 satellite. What is the reason?
Currently, the process of assembling the Satria-1 satellite by Thales Alenia Space has reached almost 70%. The satellite is scheduled to launch in mid-2023 and be operational in November of the same year.
The government will rely on the Satria-1 satellite in order to accelerate the development of Indonesia's digital infrastructure, including in Disadvantaged, Frontier, and Outermost (3T) and Border areas.
"Currently, the acceleration of digital infrastructure is the main foundation for providing digital services and supporting digital transformation according to the program launched by the central government. This year, we certainly hope that all villages and sub-districts in Indonesia have been covered by BTS," said the President Director of Bakti Kominfo , Anang Latif, in Jakarta, Friday (11/3/2022).
The Satria-1 satellite is designed to contain a capacity of 150 Gbps to support the spread of internet service access at 150 thousand points of public service locations. Meanwhile, the Satria-1 satellite, which is considered new, complex and complex, allows for risks, either anomalies during launch or when operating. For this reason, as a form of mitigation, Kominfo conducted a Hot Backup Satellite (HBS) tender.
Kominfo has announced the winners of the HBS project tender, namely the Nusantara Jaya Partnership, which consists of PT Satellite Nusantara Lima, PT DSST Mas Gemilang, PT Pasifik Satelit Nusantara, and PT Palapa Satelit Nusa Sejahtera.
In addition to its main function as a backup for the Satria-1 satellite, Anang said, the provision of HBS aims to increase internet speed as well as improve the user experience of each user of this service.
"This HBS provision project will have a capacity of 80 Gbps using High Throughput Satellite (HTS) technology with Ka-Band frequencies," he said.
The existence of HBS is expected to provide benefits for the development of Indonesia's digital economy. Potential beneficiaries of the HBS Project include the Ministry of Education, to support the provision of fast internet services at 93,400 elementary, junior high, high school, vocational, madrasah and Islamic boarding schools.
"Not only for the implementation of the Computer-Based National Examination (UNBK), but also for the teaching and learning process from the start," said Anang.
According to Anang, HBS can also provide benefits in serving 3,700 health centers, hospitals and other health services. So, the Ministry of Health can have fast internet services so that the public health database will be more complete and integrated with the center," he explained.
The HBS service is also used by the TNI and Polri to serve 3,900 points so that with fast internet service, security administration needs can be relied on.
Then, for the Regional Government, to support 47,900 village and sub-district office points and sub-districts in Indonesia which will be connected online. Electronic-based government services (e-government) can be implemented quickly and effectively.
In fact, according to Anang, it can also help the Ministry of Finance to support the acceleration of digitizing the distribution of ultra micro financing (UMi), in order to accelerate the realization of inclusive finance throughout Indonesia.
In practice, Boeing was appointed as the manufacturing company for the HBS project. Meanwhile, the rocket launcher uses SpaceX's Falcon 9, Elon Musk's company. For the orbit slot, the Indonesian administrator uses the 113 degree East Longitude slot.
Anang revealed that the construction of the Satria-1 satellite backup satellite project is planned to start in the first quarter of 2022 and will be launched in the first quarter of 2023.