Cooperating With Tesla Boss, Jokowi Will Create A Low Earth Satellite Orbit In Indonesia

Jokowi and Elon Musk collaborate to create a Low Earth Satellite Orbit (photo: YouTube Screenshot)

JAKARTA - The recent collaboration between Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is intended to build digital infrastructure in Indonesia.

As stated by the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs of Indonesia, Airlangga Hartarto, that the project is named Low Earth Satellite Orbit.

"Now that prototyping is being developed, what the President met with Elon Musk was a revolution in the digital infrastructure field called the Low Earth Satellite," Airlangga said in the Leaders Talk event with the theme 'Synergistic and Inclusive Digital Economy Ecosystem for Accelerated Recovery', Monday. , July 11th.

Airlangga also revealed that this Low Orbit Satellite will be a Game Changer or game changer in a large archipelagic country like Indonesia.

"Because we have 17 thousand islands, it is impossible for the 17 thousand islands to be connected with optical fiber. So big cities that use optical fiber must have blankspots, and these blankspots will be filled with Low Earth Satellite Orbit," he explained.

According to him, with this development in the infrastructure sector, the industrial and digital sectors will join, or be connected to each other.

Acceleration of technological innovation and digital transformation is one of the main strategies for changing the Indonesian economy. Because, Airlangga considers that the potential of the digital economy in Indonesia has bright prospects if it is optimized.

Starlink, the internet satellite company from SpaceX, aims to send 42,000 satellites into low-Earth orbit within the next dozen years. So far this year alone, Elon Musk's internet company has launched around 2,200 satellites.

For the next five years, the project, which started in 2019, is expected to send 4,408 low-latency satellites into Earth orbit. If everything is launched and installed this will make all corners of the Earth, will be served by the internet from Starlink. There is no longer a blind spot on Earth.

According to a Satellitemap.space report a real time view of the Starlink satellite constellation is tricky. Even now it is seen that the Starlink satellite has almost covered the earth's surface. This can be seen from the points in outer space.

There are three kinds of satellite positions in their orbits. These are Low Earth Orbit (LEO): 500-2,000 km above the earth's surface, Medium Earth Orbit (MEO): 8,000-20,000 km above the earth's surface, and Geostationary Orbit (GSO): 35,786 km above the earth's surface. Starlink itself is included in the LEO category.

Currently Starlink only serves the majority of consumers in North America and has approximately 500,000 subscribers. It is estimated that around 80% of Starlink's current users are in North America, another 18% in Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Only 2% of Starlink users live in the rest of the world. This includes India, where they also offer internet services to residents in remote areas.

Until now, because Starlink has also been allowed to operate in around 25 countries, including Indonesia. For Indonesia, Starlink does not serve residents or subscription retail sales. Starlink is allowed to dock in Indonesia only to serve the closed fixed network of PT Telkom Satelit Indonesia