Russia's DM-SL booster unit has put NATO's dual purpose satellite SICRAL 1B into orbit after it was launched by the Sea Launch program.

"The customer, Italy's Defense Ministry, took control of the satellite," a source with the Mission Control Center near-Moscow told Interfax-AVN on Monday.

SICRAL 1B is a product of Thales Alenia Space. Its service life is 12 years. The satellite will provide telecom services to civilian users, the Italian Defense Ministry and NATO forces, Sea Launch said.

The Sea Launch international company launched a Zenit-3SL rocket from the Odysseus platform in the equatorial region of the Pacific ocean. The rocket took off at 12:16 p.m. Moscow time. The DM-SL booster unit and the satellite separated from the rocket six minutes after. The satellite reached a geo-synchronized orbit in two impulses of the booster at 2:05 p.m.