Andrea Spinelli/GENOA
THE ITALIAN ARMED forces are to get their first dedicated communications satellite following the award of a contract to a consortium led by Alenia Spazio. The air force plans to have satellite communications available for at least five aircraft types, including the Eurofighter EF2000 and Panavia Tornado.
The SITAB consortium, involving Alenia, BPD and Nuova Telespazio, will build the Sicral satellite, a command-and-control centre and a first batch of 100 satellite transmitter/receivers. It will also provide logistic support and one year's operating costs in a deal worth L692 billion ($450 million): less than L300 billion is accounted for by the satellite itself.
The satellite is due to be launched on an Ariane 5 in the second half of 1999. The Sicral is based on technology gained from building the Italsat civil satellite.
The programme is being run by the Italian air force, although it is paid for by the defence ministry as an inter-service project. A command-and-control centre is to be built at Vigna di Valle, near Rome.
The Sicral is three-axis stabilised satellite with a 350kg payload operating in UHF, SHF and EHF bands - the last two being protected against jamming in transmission and reception modes. There are eight SHF-EHF transponders and a mobile spot-beam transponder - the latter has been added after a civil-communications package for government agencies was dropped from the payload.
Source: Flight International
