The Nation - News from March 22, 1987

Indonesian ground controllers successfully fired an on-board rocket to place a new communications satellite in its proper orbit after a flawless NASA launch the day before, officials said. “They got it right on the money,” NASA spokesman George Diller said at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The $43-million Palapa relay station was launched atop NASA’s final commercial Delta rocket. Twenty-six minutes later, the satellite was turned over to Perumtel, the Indonesian telecommunications organization.