On Thursday, January 5, Thales Alenia Space welcomed an Indonesian delegation led by Ms. Rini M. Soemarno, Minister for State-Owned Enterprises (in the photo below: first row, in the center). The delegation visited the clean rooms at Thales Alenia Space’s Cannes plant, where the minister admired her country’s new telecommunications satellite, Telkom-3S.

The satellite will be shipped in the following days from Cannes to the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana.

The satellite was built by Thales Alenia Space for the Indonesian operator PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia TbK (Telkom), and will be launched by an Ariane 5 rocket on February 14. Positioned at 118° East, Telkom-3S will boost the operator’s C-band capacity, and also offer Ku-band high-definition television broadcasting and GSM/Internet services. It offers a design life exceeding 15 years, and its footprint will cover Indonesia, Southeast Asia and part of Malaysia.

Thales Alenia Space won an international call for tenders from the operator PT. Telkom in July 2014. As satellite prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space is in charge of design, testing and in-orbit delivery of the satellite, along with the launch and early orbit phase (LEOP) and in-orbit testing (IOT). Thales Alenia Space also provided parts of the control center and trained engineers and technicians as part of this program.

Telkom-3S is the 80th telecom satellite built on a Spacebus platform (Spacebus 4000B2). Its deployment will enable PT Telkom to increase broadcast capacity, as well as providing key services for businesses, the interconnection of mobile networks and Internet backbones.

Copyrights:
Artistic view: © Thales Alenia Space/Master Image Programmes
Photos in the cleam rooms: © Thales Alenia Space/Imag[IN]
Delegation: © Thales Alenia Space/Alban Pichon