TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Astronomical failure?: Govt expedites probe into unauthorized satellite contracts
Change Size
Illustration of a satellite. (Shutterstock/Tatiana Shepeleva)
T
he government is seeking to hasten its investigation of the Defense Ministry’s signing of allegedly unauthorized satellite leases to fill a strategic orbital slot in 2015, a move that may have cost taxpayers billions of rupiah.
Over the past few years, Indonesia has faced a series of lawsuits over its failure to pay several satellite operators to temporarily fill the country’s orbital slot at 123 degrees east longitude in order to maintain its right to the slot under International Telecommunication Union (ITU) regulations.
After the Garuda-1 satellite was retired following multiple malfunctions, the Defense Ministry took over control of the orbital slot from the Communications and Information Ministry in 2015. It sought to launch a defense communications satellite and signed a lease on the Artemis satellite owned by the United Kingdom’s Avanti Communications.
The strategic satellite slot, reserved for the L-Band frequency, is suitable for military communications and navigation and is located on the equator above Sulawesi. Indonesia currently has seven orbital slots of various frequency bands, which are used for various purposes, including Earth monitoring.
