Sea Launch took delivery of the SICRAL 1B communications satellite at the payload processing facility at the Sea Launch home port in the Port of Long Beach.

With additional arrivals this month of associated hardware and personnel, Sea Launch is prepared to boost the satellite to space in January.

Sea Launch will be inserting the SICRAL 1B communications satellite to geosynchronous transfer orbit for Telespazio, a Thales/Finmeccanica company, based in Rome.

A contract was signed with Telespazio last year.

SICRAL 1B will be lifted to orbit on a Zenit-3SL vehicle.

Built in Torino by Thales Alenia Space Italia, another Thales/Finmeccanica company, the dual-use Italsat 3000 bus spacecraft was integrated and tested in Cannes, France.

SICRAL 1B will provide strategic and tactical communications services for the Italian armed forces, in Italy and abroad, as well as ensuring mobile communications with land, naval and air platforms. It will also provide NATO forces with UHF and SHF SATCOM capabilities.

SICRAL 1B joins SICRAL 1A, already in orbit, as part of Italy’s first military communications satellite system dedicated to national security. SICRAL 1B has an expected operating life of 13 years and is designed to extend the potential of the system within NATO programs until 2019. As an investor in the SICRAL 1B program, Telespazio will have access of some of the satellite’s transmission capacity from its final orbital position at 11.8 degrees East Longitude.