Iridium Communications Inc. (formerly Iridium Satellite LLC) is a publicly traded American company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, United States. Iridium operates the Iridium satellite constellation, a system of 80 satellites: 66 are active satellites and the remaining fourteen function as in-orbit spares.[2] Iridium Satellites are used for worldwide voice and data communication from handheld satellite phones, satellite messenger communication devices and integrated transceivers, as well as for two-way satellite messaging service from supported conventional mobile phones.[3][4][5] The nearly polar orbit and communication between satellites via inter-satellite links provide global service availability.
History
The Iridium communications service was launched on November 1, 1998, formerly known as Iridium SSC. The first Iridium call was made from Vice President of the United States Al Gore to Gilbert Grosvenor, the great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell and chairman of the National Geographic Society.[6] Motorola provided the technology and major financial backing.[7] The logo of the company represents the Big Dipper.[8] The company derives its name from the chemical element iridium, which has an atomic number of 77, equaling the initial number of satellites which were calculated to be required for global coverage.[9] However, due to optimizations of orbit trajectories, technology updates and real-world conditions, only 66 are required for global coverage. A total of 95 satellites were launched in this constellation, with 66 active and the remaining 29 satellites operating as spares.[10]
On August 13, 1999, nine months after the launch of the organization, the founding company went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[11] The handsets could not operate as promoted until the entire constellation of satellites was in place, requiring a massive initial capital cost of billions of dollars.[12] The cost of service dissuaded many potential users. Reception indoors was difficult and the handheld devices, when compared to terrestrial cellular mobile phones were bulkier and more expensive, both of which discouraged adoption among potential users.[11]
Mismanagement is another major factor that was cited in the original program's failure. In 1999, CNN writer David Rohde detailed how he applied for Iridium service and was sent information kits, but was never contacted by a sales representative. He encountered programming problems on Iridium's website, and a "run-around" from the company's representatives.[13] After Iridium filed bankruptcy, it cited "difficulty gaining subscribers."[14]
The initial commercial failure of Iridium had a damping effect on other proposed commercial satellite constellation projects, including Teledesic. Other schemes (Orbcomm, ICO Global Communications, and Globalstar) followed Iridium into bankruptcy protection, while a number of other proposed schemes were never even constructed.[11]
In August 2000, Motorola announced that the Iridium satellites would have to be deorbited.[15] Despite this, they remained in orbit and operational.[16][17] In December 2000, the US government stepped in to save Iridium by providing US$72 million in exchange for a two-year contract. They also approved the fire sale of the company from US bankruptcy court for $25 million[15] in March 2001. This erased over $4 billion in debt.[18]
Iridium service was restarted in 2001, by the newly founded Iridium Satellite LLC, which was owned by a group of private investors.[12]
On February 10, 2009, the Iridium 33 satellite collided with a defunct Russian satellite, named Kosmos 2251, 800 km over Siberia.[19] Two large debris clouds were created.[20]
Iridium NEXT launch campaign
Iridium replaced its original constellation by sending 75 new Iridium satellites into space on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets in a series of 8 launches. The campaign also consisted of upgrades to Iridium ground infrastructure.[21]
The Iridium NEXT launch campaign was announced in 2007. Within three years, Iridium completed financing and began work on launching new satellites.[22] In June 2010, Iridium announced a fixed-price contract with Thales Alenia Space for the design and construction of the next-generation satellites for the upgraded constellation.[23] Two weeks later, Iridium announced a $492 million contract designating the Falcon 9 as a major provider of launch services for the Iridium NEXT campaign, becoming the largest single commercial launch deal ever signed (simultaneously representing a benchmark in cost-effective satellite delivery to space).[24]
Present status
Iridium Satellite LLC merged with a special-purpose acquisition company (GHQ) created by the investment bank Greenhill & Co. in September 2009 to create Iridium Communications Inc. The public company trades on NASDAQ under the symbol "IRDM". The company surpassed one million subscribers in March 2018.[32] Revenue for the full year 2018 was $523.0 million with operational EBITDA of $302.0 million, a 14% increase from $265.6 million in the prior year.[33]
Iridium manages several operations centers, including Tempe, Arizona and Leesburg, Virginia, United States.[34][35]
The system is being used by the U.S. Department of Defense.[36]
Russo-Ukrainian War
From 2015–2022, Iridium Satellite was selling navigation systems directly to its Russian subsidiary, Iridium Communications. In 2022, the Moscow-based subsidiary gave the National Guard of Russia access to the satellite constellation.
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Iridium structured their operations to comply with US sanctions and stopped shipment of end-user equipment to Russia. Despite this, In 2023, Iridium Communications, via some unknown intermediaries, imported machines made by the American parent company for receiving and converting voice and images.[48]
Iridium satellite constellation
The Iridium system requires 66 active satellites in low Earth orbit to complete its constellation and 9 spare satellites are kept in-orbit to serve in case of failure.[49] The satellites are in six polar orbital planes at a height of approximately 485 mi.[50] Satellites communicate with neighboring satellites via Ka band intersatellite links to relay communications to and from ground stations.[51] The original constellation was launched in the late 1990s before the company went through bankruptcy. In January 2017, Iridium began to launch its next-generation satellites through its $3 billion launch campaign, Iridium NEXT. The new satellites were sent into space on SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicles from Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 4 in California over the course of eight launches between January 2017 and January 2019.[52][53]
Subscriber equipment
Handsets
Iridium offers four satellite handsets: the 9555, 9575A (which is only available to US government customers), the Extreme, and the Extreme PTT.[58]
Wi-Fi Hotspots
In 2014, Iridium began to offer the Iridium Go! hotspot, which can also be used as a distress beacon under certain circumstances.[59] As of September 2020, Iridium's manufacturing contractor, Beam Communications, had built 50,000 of these devices.[60]
One-way pagers
Two pagers were made for the Iridium network – the
See also
- Mobile-satellite service
- Broadband Global Area Network
- DeLorme
- Globalsat Group
- Globalstar
- Gonets
- Inmarsat
- OneWeb
- O3b Networks
- SES Broadband
- Sky and Space Global
External links
References
- Iridium Communications Annual Reports^
- Iridium Adds to Constellation Resilience with Launch of Spare Satellites Iridium Communications Inc., retrieved 2024-12-10^
- Loren Grush. How a new satellite constellation could allow us to track planes all over the globe