The mobile satellite services provider Iridium has ordered 81 spacecraft to upgrade its global network.
Thales Alenia Space of France will build the satellites – 66 to form the operational constellation, the remainder to act as spares.
The order makes the Iridium Next venture the biggest commercial space project in the world today.
The $2.1bn deal has largely been underwritten by the French export credit guarantee organisation, Coface. The overall cost of the Iridium Next project is likely to be about $2.9bn, much of which the company expects to finance out of its own cash flow…
Iridium, which allows subscribers to make a phone call and data connection anywhere in the world, began operating in 1998 but soon ran into financial difficulties.
It was purchased out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2000 by investors who paid a fraction of the cost of setting up the first constellation.
Today, the company, which is based in McLean, Virginia, has about 360,000 subscribers worldwide, earning revenues amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Just under a quarter of those revenues come from US government and Department of Defense contracts.
Rock on, Iridium. Most geeks only remember the failure of the original company and haven’t a clue about the current successes.
I thought the Iridium business model was:
1. Raise capital from investors.
2. Spend all capital on satellites, then go bankrupt, screwing investors.
3. Buy back assets of bankrupt company at bargain prices.
4. Make profit.
Now we’re back to step 1.
#1 Item 4 should be “…profit” to follow internet lore.
Guess this is an example of a poor business plan by clueless management or perhaps its all in the
timing
The original idea of the Motorola Iridium satellite phone system was that if businesses had begun to incorporate travel & downtime costs for locally made calls imagine how much they would pay in isolated areas not served by cell phones
Yet in the end Motorola ended the system by crashing its hardware to earth
Now Iridium is a success story
I wondered where these guys went. I assumed the satellites were all being used by the gov’t. Wasn’t B.Gates and the McCaw family in on this?
It was called Iridium because the original design was going to use 77 satellites – and 77 is the atomic number for Iridium.
After some design revisions they had it down to 66 satellites so they went back the periodic table…Atomic Number 66…Dysprosium …from the Greek meaning “hard to find.”
Iridium it is…
Most geeks only remember the failure of the original company and haven’t a clue about the current successes”
That would be I.
And that would be why I visit here so often.
McLean, Virginia? So, Iridium was purchased by the CIA? Somehow that does not surprise me.
The last I heard of Iridium, the company was going broke and they were planning to send the satellites to burn up in the atmosphere. That was probably CIA disinformation.
“Today, the company, which is based in McLean, Virginia, has about 360,000 subscribers worldwide, earning revenues amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. Just under a quarter of those revenues come from US government and Department of Defense contracts.”
That is contracts actually listed. I’ll bet another quarter of the revenue is contracts that are hidden, but Uncle Sam still pays for.
The more I think about it, the more I agree with #7. Either that or the NSA.
I’ve been following Iridium for years, mostly because of my fascination with the idea of a true Star Trek communicator that would work anywhere in the world.
The main reason they never got the kind of traction they needed was mostly because of the explosive growth of GSM phones in the third world. No one (at Motorola, of all places) saw that coming. Their system also had a fatal flaw because the Internet was just starting to get the publics’ attention, and due to their circuit switched design, they were stuck at 56Kbps throughput. It was somewhat easy for Inmarsat to add higher bandwidth data links, although not as easy to set up a call for the end user, since they had to point an antenna in the general direction of the geostationary satellite. Iridium is betting that remote telemetry will be a big sell for the upgraded network, but they’ll really have to come in cheap if they want to get into that business (or get a lot of government contracts). The main point of their design is mobile use with little to no set-up time, and most remote telemetry happens at fixed locations, where it’s usually easy to set up an antenna looking south.
But I still think it’s neat tech, something I’m reminded of every time I see an Iridium Flare.
Finally saw an Iridium Flare a few weeks ago.
It was cool. Everyone should see one and the
bright ISS when it passes over you location.
#7 very good!
#7, #9:
On the money.
I wonder what the rate is for CIA field agents to call home… $50/min sounds about right.
Which satellite network did Osama bin Laden use?
Iridium toxicity is unknown. The satellites have been recalled.
Iridium, another Halliburton, SUCKING AT FEDERAL TEAT !!! LET’S PUT AN END TO CORPORATE WELFARE !!!
DoD often supplements commercial satellite launches by adding little black boxes to the payloads. It’s cheaper than maintaining a ground control center, and it spreads assets. Plus it comes under the hidden budget lines because of National Security. How do I know this? I don’t. I made the shit up, but it sounds good.
“based in McLean, Virginia”