This satellite carries 60 active transponders consisting of 24 C-Band transponders and 12 Extended C-Band transponders which will serve the Southeast Asia region, including Indonesia, as well as 24 C-Band transponders which will reach the South Asia region. The satellite relies on the SSL 1300 satellite bus with a design life of 16 years with up to 21 years of fuel remaining. The development of the Merah Putih Satellite involves two U.S. companies, namely SSL as a satellite manufacturer and SpaceX as a launch service provider. The total mass of the satellite is 5,800 kilograms (12,800 lb). Telkom-4 is devoted to serving high-definition television (HDTV) broadcasts, GSM and Internet services.
Launch
Telkom-4 was launched using the SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 first stage B1046.2 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Florida, United States on 7 August 2018, at 01:18 UTC. The launch was the first time SpaceX reused one of the Block 5 variant of the Falcon 9 rocket boosters.[6] After successfully separating from the second stage, the first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.
Project cost
The launch of the Telkom-4 (Merah Putih) satellite saves around 25% of the cost of launching the previous satellite, the Telkom-3S satellite, which was launched on 15 February 2017, which cost US$215 million. Meanwhile, the Merah Putih satellite only costs US$165 million and includes insurance costs of US$10 million.[7]
Service users
Due to the inadequacy of the Palapa-D satellite to operate until July 2020, while the replacement satellite, Nusantara Dua (Palapa N1),[8] failed to reach orbit, many TV and radio channels migrated from Palapa-D to Telkom-4.[9] Below is a list of frequency of channels that have migrated as of July 2020:[10]
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
