Indonesia launches satellite tracking maritime traffic

Xinhua news agency reported that Indonesia is planning to launch Lapan A2 satellite to monitor traffic on its vast seas.

The head of the Institute of Aeronautics (Lapan) explains Lapan A2's ability.

The 78kg satellite is designed, assembled and tested in-house by the Institute of Aerospace (Lapan) and will be Indonesia's first satellite to operate in equatorial orbit and equipped with a knife system. automatic.

Mr. Suhermanto, Director of Lapan Satellite Technical Center, said last week that Lapan A2 satellite will be launched in the middle of next year by Indian rocket PSLV-C23 from the base in Sriharikota (India).

Because Lapan A2 operates on equatorial trajectories, it will fly through Indonesian territory 15 times a day, significantly more than Lapan Tubsat satellites.

Lapan Tubsat was launched in 2007 and turned on polar orbit, so it was only possible to fly through Indonesia 2-3 times a day, too little to track the waters of Indonesia where frequent fishing activities took place. illegally and also transit areas of vessels carrying out transnational crimes.

Sympathetic equipment of Lapan A2 - Automatic identification system, will be able to mark up to 2,000 ships in a single coverage area and can identify location, speed, destination and characteristics techniques of ships in Indonesian waters.

The satellite will operate at a height of 650km, from which it can detect signal transmission from ships within a radius of more than 100km. The data collected from the tracking system will allow authorities to quickly distinguish vessels with valid licenses from unauthorized vessels.

Lapan A2 satellite project was approved in 2008 and started to be built in 2010.