Alcatel Space announced that it has completed and delivered to Hughes Space and Communications the first of two communications payloads for the two XM Satellite Radio spacecraft.

The second payload is scheduled for delivery next month.

XM Satellite Radio [XMSR] is one of the two companies building nationwide subscription radio systems designed to serve car and truck drivers.

The payload was shipped last from Alcatel’s plant in Toulouse, France, to Hughes’s satellite factory in El Segundo, Calif., where it will be integrated into a high-powered Hughes 702 bus.Jean-Claude Husson, president and CEO of Alcatel Space said it is “the largest payload ever made, and we successfully demonstrated our capabilities to meet the challenge of its very high-power requirement.” The payload provides two S-band downlink channels with a RF power close to 3,000 watts each. “With a power consumption in excess of 13 kilowatts, the XM payload is the most powerful ever produced,” Alcatel Space officials added.