SICRAL 1B, an Italian military communications satellite that will be shared with NATO and allied countries went into orbit this morning atop an international rocket launched from a platform floating in the Pacific Ocean. More details at http://spaceflightnow.com/sealaunch/sicral1b/
And from Jonathan's Space Report at http://planet4589.org/space/jsr/latest.html
Italy's second military communications satellite, SICRAL 1B, was launched on Apr 20 by a Boeing-Sea Launch Zenit-3SL from the floating Odyssey launch platform in the equatorial Pacific. The satellite was built at Thales Alenia/Torino. The SICRAL (Sistema Italiano per Comunicazioni Riservate ed Allarmi, Italian System for Classified Communications and Alarms) 1B satellite supplements SICRAL 1A launched in 2001 Feb on an Ariane 4.
SICRAL 1B is an improved Thales Alenia Italsat-3000 design; the satellite is 7.8m high and the solar panels span 24.4m. Mass is 3038 kg full, 1680 kg dry. (thanks to Guiseppina Piccirilli of Thales Alenia (I) for details).
The Torino (Turin) plant of Thales Alenia built the ELDO STV satellites in the 1960s, when it was part of FIAT. In 1969 it became part of Aeritalia, in 1990 part of Alenia Spazio, in 2005 part of Alcatel Alenia Space, and in 2007 Thales Alenia.
The Zenit-3SL's lower two stages put the Blok DM-SL upper stage in a -1949 x 233 km x 0.0 deg trajectory; the two DM burns went to an elliptical 200 x 14108 km x 0.0 deg intermediate orbit and then an 8528 x 35596 km x 0.0 high-perigee geostationary transfer orbit. Three debris objects have been cataloged in the transfer orbit - this is unusual for Zenit-3SL launches.
