Indonesian government launched what they call "the most powerful satellite in Asia" in cooperation with Elon Musk-owned SpaceX to solve its lack of internet connectivity in some of its rural areas, according to
Mashable Asia.
The satellite named Satria-1 was launched from the U.S. on June 19, 2023, with the payload deployed by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
With about a third of Indonesians still without stable access to the internet, this fresh launch will aim to fix a large part of the problem by connecting around 90,000 schools as well as 40,000 hospitals and government structures to the internet when the satellites becomes fully operational next year, the news site added.
The satellite, which was manufactured by French defense electronics firm Thales and cost approximately US$540 million to create, has been described as the country's "first government-owned multi-function satellite with the biggest capacity in Asia" by President Joko Widodo on his official Instagram account.
The satellite will only become full operational in 2024, where it will start providing connection speeds of up to 150 gigabytes per second — around three times faster than the current speed of satellite internet in the archipelago.
