The contract signing ceremony took place in Jakarta, and was witnessed by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia, Tifatul Sembiring, Indonesian Minister of Communications and Informatics, Dahlan Iskan, Minister for State Owned Enterprises, and Corinne Breuzé, French ambassador to Indonesia.

The BRIsat satellite will be orbited by an Ariane 5 launcher in 2016 from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

It will be the fifth satellite to be launched by Arianespace for Indonesian operators.

BRIsat will be built by Space Systems/Loral, and will weigh about 3,500 kg at launch. Fitted with C and Ku-band transponders, it will offer a design life exceeding 15 years. From its orbital position at 150.5° East, it will deliver highly reliable communications services to BRI’s 11,000 bank branches across the Indonesian archipelago.

“We chose Arianespace after a demanding international selection process, and they are clearly the best solution for BRI,” said Sofyan Basir, head of BRI. “We know that we can count on the professionalism of the company’s staff and on the reliability and availability of the Ariane 5 launch vehicle to successfully complete this project, which is so important for us and for Indonesia.”

Jacques Breton, Arianespace Senior Vice-President, Sales & Customers, added, “We are very proud of our selection by BRI, which has indeed honored Arianespace by entrusting us with their first satellite. Their selection shows the competitiveness of our launch services for satellites of the 3 metric ton class. This is our fifth contract with Indonesia, coming 15 years after the launch of Palapa C2 in 1996, and also further cements an exceptional space partnership between Indonesia and Europe.”