Indonesia launches indigenous satellite

Indonesia launched its indigenous satellite codenamed Lapan A2 on Monday, using rockets and launching pad in Satish Dhawan Space Center, India, highly expected as a milestone for Indonesia to master satellite technology, an Indonesian senior official said.

"The Lapan A2 was originally made by engineers and facilities of Lapan," Head of Indonesia's National Institute of Aeronautics and Space agency (Lapan) Thomas Djamaluddin said on the sidelines of witnessing live broadcast of the satellite launching in his office here.

In the future, he said that Indonesia is expected to be capable of producing rockets to support the satellite launching by itself. "So we can launch the satellite independently. We want to develop a satellite technology autonomously," Thomas added.

The satellite that weighs 78 kilograms, occupies an orbit lane around the earth's equator at an altitude of 650 kilometers from the earth's surface. The satellite would crisscross Indonesian territory 14 times per day with orbit period of 100 minutes, Thomas said.

According to Thomas, the satellite would be used to monitor the traffic of vessel, support the efforts to secure maritime security, exploration of fishery natural resources in the country.

For vessel monitoring task, the satellite is equipped with Automatic Identification System (AIS) to identify vessels sailing across Indonesian waters. It has surveillance areas of thousands of kilometer squares.

The satellite has digital camera and video devices to take images of earth from its orbit.

He added that the satellite movement will eventually be controlled by Indonesia's facility located in Rancabungur, Bogor, West Java.

Previously in 2007, Indonesia launched the Lapan A1 satellite, now still in its orbit at an altitude of 630 kilometers from earth surface, but its operation period has expired in 2013. Endi