The launch failure of the Telkom-3 satellite owned by Indonesia's state telecommunication company PT Telkom will not affect the operation of the firm, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan said on Wednesday.

"It will have no impact on the services or operations of PT Telkom," Iskan said, adding that he absolved the company of any responsibility in the matter.

The minister was quoted by Antara news agency as saying that Telkom can deal with the failure as it has other satellites to support its services.

The 200 million U.S. dollar satellite was insured so Telkom need not worry about incurring any major losses from the failed launch.

Meanwhile, Slamet Riyadi, the head of Corporate Communications and Affairs at Telkom, said that the launch of Telkom-3 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan had encountered uncharacteristic problems, which led to failure to reach its orbit.

The Telkom-3 satellite carried by a Russian-made Proton-M rocket blasted off at 2:30 am Jakarta time Tuesday. Hours later, the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos reported the satellite was out of control and became space junk.

This is the first time Indonesia has bought a satellite from Russian company Retshesnev. The previous Telkom-2 satellite used a French-made Ariane-5 rocket for its launch.

Source: Xinhua News Agency