Posted: Mon, Jul 2, 2007, 7:27 AM ET (1127 GMT)
Thales Alenia Space announced Friday that it has won a contract to build and launch a new communications satellite for Indonesia. The Palapa-D spacecraft will be based on Spacebus 4000B3 model and weigh 4.1 tonnes at launch, carrying 35 C-band and 5 Ku-band transponders. The spacecraft is scheduled for launch in the second half of 2009 into GEO at 113 degrees east, replacing the existing Palapa-C2 spacecraft. Thales Alenia and its customer, Indosat, jointly selected a Chinese Long March 3B rocket to launch the spacecraft. That choice of launcher implies that the spacecraft is a so-called "ITAR-free" model without any US-provided components that would prevent the spacecraft from being exported to China for launch.

Related Links:

•  Space News article (subscription required)
•  Thales Alenia Space press release