A Busy Year

The Indoesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (Lembaga Penerbangan dan Antariksa Nasional - LAPAN) will be very busy this year following a stream of activities and programs which have been planned along 2013 as well as the coming years.

The space agency will be preparing the facilities and equipment needed to build its third indigenous satellite to be known as LAPAN A3. The agency will also started to complete its LAPAN A4 initial design concept by this year.

The locally developed rockets namely the  RX-122, RX-200, RX-320, RX-450 and RX-550 are also planned to be test launched this year at Morotai. Indonesian made cruise missile prototypes namely RKX-200EDF (Electric Ducted Fan) and RKX-200TJ (Turbo Jet) are also slated to be tested this year.

LAPAN will also played an active part for the development of IAe N219 STOL aircraft. It will also involved in Indonesia’s future aerospace projects namely the N-245 (2015-2016) and N-270 (2017-2022) turboprop transport aircraft. The N-245 is the development of Airbus/IAe CN-235.

The agency will also developed a two seat surveillance aircraft based on the Icon A-5 aircraft.  To be known as LAPAN Surveillance Aircraft-01 (LSA-01), an optionally piloted vehicle (OPV) variant of the aircraft shall also being jointly developed with Germany’s Berlin Technical University (TUB), the very same university which co-developed the TUBSAT-LAPAN microsatellite.

LAPAN will also concentrates on the development of its LAPAN Surveillance UAV (LUS) family. Focus shall be given on its LSU-02 and LSU-03 prototypes which could be used for disaster mitigation, agricultural, forestry and military.

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