SpaceX launched a satellite Sunday evening that will enable high-speed internet access to schools and hospitals on the poor island nation of Indonesia.
The SATRIA-1-Satellite of the Republic of Indonesia - hit the air at around 6:21 p.m. Sunday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The rockets arced to the east over the Atlantic Ocean before disappearing from the view of the live feed.
The satellite is part of a $550million project to get much of the public infrastructure of Indonesia online. CEO Elon Musk retweeted multiple videos of the rocket launch.
The 10,100-pound satellite will stay in orbit at an altitude of 22,3000 miles above the equator, according to CBS News.
SATRIA was made possible by a public/private partnership between the Indonesian government and a satellite operator, along with SpaceX.
The satellite has a throughput of 150 gigabytes per second, making it capable of getting high-speed internet to tens of thousands of buildings in the world's fourth-most populous country.
Indonesia can be a difficult country to build out high-speed infrastructure because it's a union of about 6,000 islands.
'There are areas that are still blank spots,' Danny Januar Ismawan, infrastructure director of Indonesia's Telecommunications and Information Accessibility Agency, told SpaceFlightNow.
'This satellite technology is the telecommunication network of last resort. Why use a satellite? Because it's impossible with fiber optic or microwave terrestrial technology.'
At least 94,000 schools, 50,000 village offices and many other government facilities and hospitals will be online.
'With a capacity of 150 Gbps, (SATRIA) can provide more than three times the combined national capacities that are currently in use,' Adi Rahman Adiwoso, CEO of the satellite operator partnering with the country, said in a statement.
'We are confident that SATRIA can be the solution to the digital gap that still exists in Indonesia.'
Indonesia previously relied on five different domestic communications satellites and four foreign relay stations.
As Adiwoso explained, the 150 gigabytes per second is triple the 50,000 per second they had previously.
SATRIA is slated to be in operation for at least the next 15 years.
The satellite was SpaceX's 41st Falcon-family flight launch in 2023 and 245th overall.
The first stage of the rocket is actually reusable once it returned to earth.