Indonesia to launch satellite monitoring maritime traffic

Indonesia is set to have more eyes in its skies with the launch of the Lapan A2 satellite to monitor traffic across its vast maritime expanses. The satellite, weighing 78 kilograms, was designed, assembled and tested in-house by the Institute for Aeronautics and Space ( Lapan) and will be the nation's first satellite running in an equatorial orbit that is equipped with an automated remote-sensing system, local media reported on Saturday. Suhermanto, chief of Lapan's Satellite Technology Center, said the satellite would be launched in mid-2013, piggybacking on India' s PSLV-C23 rocket from its base in Sriharikota, India. "The Lapan A2 satellite will run in an equatorial orbit so it will pass over Indonesia up to 15 times a day," Suhermanto said on Friday at the center's facilities in Rancabungur, Bogor. The frequency at which the Lapan A2 will pass over Indonesian territory is a significant increase from the Lapan Tubsat. That satellite was launched in 2007 and runs on a polar orbit, meaning it can only pass over Indonesia two to three times a day, a rate far from sufficient to monitor the nation's seas, which are prone to illegal fishing and poaching, and the transit of vessels used for transnational crimes. Lapan had previously expected that the satellite would be launched in 2011, but Suhermanto said the plan had to be put on hold pending completion of India's Astrosat satellite, which will be the rocket launcher's main cargo. "We have completed developing the Lapan A2 and in the meantime, it will undergo regular maintenance before we send it to India for its launch in the second quarter of 2013," Suhermanto said as quoted by the Jakarta Globe. However, he couldn't specify the launch date, saying it would depend on many other factors such as the weather. The satellite's remote sensing device, the Automatic Identification System, will be able to tag a maximum of 2,000 ships in a single coverage area and it will be able to identify the ships' positions, speeds, destinations and specifications in Indonesian waters. The satellite will orbit at a height of 650 kilometers, from which it will be able to detect transmissions from ships located within a more than 100-kilometer radius. "This identification system is used mainly by commercial vessels and it would be complementary to our existing maritime surveillance system," said Heru Triharjanto, a scientist at Lapan' s satellite center. Heru added that with data gathered from the monitoring system, the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, as the agency authorized to issue licenses for fishing vessels, would be able to quickly distinguish those vessels with valid permits from those operating illegally. Apart from its monitoring ability, the satellite will be useful for disaster mitigation and communications. The Lapan A2 satellite project was approved in 2008 and the institute began assembling it in 2010.