SICRAL 1B

SICRAL 1B is a military communications satellite built by Thales Alenia Space for Italian Armed Forces. It is a dual-use spacecraft: Telespazio will use some of the satellite's transmission capacity and some will be used by the Italian defense ministry and NATO. The spacecraft is based on the Italsat 3000 bus and includes one EHF/Ka band, three UHF-band and five active SHF-band transponders. It is designed to be operable for 13 years.

Construction
Thales Alenia Space was the prime contractor for development and construction of the SICRAL 1B satellite.

Launch
On April 20, 2009 Sea Launch used a Zenit-3SL to carry SICRAL 1B into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. Liftoff from the Ocean Odyssey launch platform took place at 08:16 GMT.