R.I.P. Iridium

Archeopteryx writes, "Motorola has posted a notice that they expect, barring a financial 'White Knight,' Iridium service to end at 11:59 p.m. EST on March 17. A few questions come to mind: 1) What becomes of the abandoned satellites? They are a real nuisance to astronomers due to the 'Iridium Flash' effect, and they complicate launch windows for satellites destined for any inclination. 2) Have these any Ham Radio use? 3) Assuming there is a use for them, who owns them after they are abandoned? Any Space Law experts out there? An abandoned ship is subject to salvage laws; how about an abandoned spacecraft?"

Comments

To the 0wn3rz go the ComSats

[griffjon]

Rogue communication satellites abandoned by their creators and no longer supported by their users? Satellites /designed/ for cellphone-like communication?

Hmmmmm... hack targets. *drool* Think of the freenet-style net we could bring on if someone hacked these babies and set up satelite networking. Do they have inband commands?

My bets are on the Cult of the Dead Cow to be the first to OwN these guys. Heh. I predict a satellite-hack version of king of the hill coming up.

Iridium RIP

[gmkeegan]

One of Iridium's press releases stated that if a "White Knight" was found that they had drawn up a plan for restructuring in the coming year. They also stated that the same plan had steps for de-orbiting the satellites, a process that they expect to take 6 or 7 months. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000306/tc/teleco ms_iridium_4.html

Iridium Satellites of Love

[cprincipe]

Actually, these satellites were created with just this contingency in mind. Upon the failure of the company, these satellites are programmed to RAIN FIREY DEATH down upon the peoples of the Earth, resulting in THE END OF LIFE as we know it. BWA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!

Either that, or they will become the new Skynet.

Re:Iridium Flash effect?

[Chops-Frozen-Water]

A link from an old Slashdot story is a story in Wired. Basically, Iridium use(s|d) a frequency that "bled" into one frequently used by radio-astronomers to observe the cosmos.
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Re:Iridium Flash effect?

[Audin]

Iridium satellites have three large, flat, reflective antennas arrainged at an angle to the main spacecraft. These antennas, when at the right angle, can produce a very bright glint of reflected runlight. If you know where to look, the flares can be seen in broad daylight.

Look here: http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sa t/vsohp/iridium.html

They explain the effect, and even link to flare prediction software.

Re:Iridium Flash effect?

[Mike Van Pelt]

Specifically, the antennae on the Iridium are flat and highly polished surfaces. The flashes can get as bright as -8 magnitude for a few seconds.

The web page to check out is www.heavens-above.com. Give them your latitude and longitude, and they can provide you with predictions of where to look and when.

Copy of note to Motorala

[Hesperus]

To Whome it may concern:

It has my come to your attention that failing to find a buyer you will soon abandon your network of communications satellites, known as Iridium.

I am prepared to offer $100.00 US for your satellite network.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I'm sure you will agree that such a remarkable sum underscores the seriousness of my offer.

Regards,

........

Harm for Radio Astronomy Even Worse than Flash

[astrophysics]

An even bigger problem than the flash is Iridium's invasion on radio astronomy. In particular it interferes with on emission line (CO I beleive), which is important for determing metal abundances and temperatures in gas clouds.

The frequencies were protected by international treaty. Additionally, MOT agreed to respect the critical frequencies when they received nearby frequencies. Later, they went back on their word and ignored the international treaty.

In fairnes to MOT, they have worked with the major radio astronomy facilities to avoid making the frequency completely useless by scheduling windows when they would significanly limit their interference in certain locations. However, they still interfere and it makes scheduling time an even for obnoxious task for astronomers who try to maximize the utility of their observatories.

Even worse, it sets a very bad precedent for a big company to threaten to ruin an important scientific resource, and then "be nice" by being better than originally planned. What if every big company decides to put up a big network of satelites interfering with one frequency range, but agrees to be nice in certain locations at certain times? Not good for science!

I think they will just burn up.

[Mr T]

I'm not a legal expert but... At my new job I have a TV on my desk and I generally keep it on CNBC all day to track the market and my stocks and it's the most exceptable channel to keep it on while coding (a few guys can do cartoons but it's suspect because the boss knows you want to watch them, nobody wants to admit the love CNBC) They've been talking about irridium lately too.

As it goes, last Tuesday they talked about Irridium because some guy was bailing on them, it's the guy who owns vodafon. Anyhow, if nobody buys irridium then they will stop driving the satallites and after a while they will all enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up. A few of them might make it a while but they will all suffer the same fate eventually. CNBC made it sound like on March 17 they will turn the satallites off and just let them drift.

It's really kind of a bummer, I love the idea of a universal mobile phone. There are tons of applications for it. Irridium has been mismanaged since the get-go though. Nobody is going to be a $3000 portable phone and pay $8 a minute for service except for in the most extreme circumstances or they are the most reckless rich guys around. From what I've heard the line quality wasn't so hot either. My PCS phone works just about everywhere I've been in this country and I could easily buy a few more and use call forwarding in other jurisdictions if I needed it for much less than Irridium. There are also alternative satallite world phone ventures that are going on. I also think there are some laws in the US about satallite communication. I think NORAD or some other government agency will track your satallite and possibly even guide it for you if you for some small fee, that fee being something like they have access to your uplinks. I'm not 100% sure on it, but I suspect that once Irridium shuts down they will make sure the satallites cannot be used by anybody. I think there are a number of fears about people sniffing intelligence data to our spy satallites or determining where our spy satallites are. Perhaps someone else in the know knows the details on this.

Whatever the reasons, I'm pretty sure they will just turn the satallites off and let them crash.

Maybe Iridium should be put on eBay?

[CausticPuppy]

Here we have 80+ satellites in orbit that nobody wants, and I still have to access the net at 56k.

The world is full of irony.

By the way, Heavens Above is a great place to look if you want to know when and where iridium flashes will take place. I'm sure those will be missed...

Technical info on sats + ham radio

[RancidPickle]

Someone was interested in Ham Radio use of the sats (like the Phase 3D or Oscars). There's a lot of them up there (66 Iridium sats), but they're out of frequency. Also, they're right in the LEOsat hotspots for spectrum use, so I don't doubt that they'll re-farm them out or resell them.

Satellites: 66
Orbital Planes: 6
Orbit Height: 780 km (these are LEOsats)
Inclination of Orbital Planes: 86.4
Orbital Period: 100 min. 28 sec.
Lifetime: 5 to 8 years
Frequencies and Rates
Telephone and Messaging Service Links are 1616 - 1626.5 MHz (L-Band)
Intersatellite Links are 23.18 - 23.38 GHz (Ka-Band)
Ground Segment Links:
Downlinks: 19.4 - 19.6 GHz (Ka-Band)
Uplinks: 29.1-29.3 GHz (Ka-Band)
Digital Voice, Fax, and Data are transmitted at 2.4 Kbps