Iridium Saved?

The Mutant writes "Some good information here - the proposed purchaser will pay 900,000 US a month while the business plan is being reviewed - is that what ist costs MoTo to run Iridium? Also, they apparently will get Iridium for about two cents on the dollar. How could not you make money with a deal like that? Even if you were NOT planning on replacing satellites as they deorbit due to age. "

Comments

Did they buy the techs, or just the network?

[Brand X]

It seems to me that the biggest value in Iridium isn't the network, it's the technical expertice of their engineers, who could be called upon to design the next generation of global orbital communications networking... by a company with sufficient resources.

Still, I'm not convinced that's the way to go. Ground based communication is getting some pretty high penetration, and until the tech gets good enough to compete with ground based, affordably, there's no market. On the other hand, if they managed to make Iridium work as well as it did in the first place, those techs are probably the kind of wiz needed to get broadband wireless up and running for a ground based system. I mean, wireless is close to replacing land line phones in places like college campuses and the like... can you imagine Iridium tech converted to wireless WAN?

I still don't see the point

[jht]

Sure, if they buy Iridium they'll get a functioning satellite network for pennies on the dollar. And it can be run pretty cheaply, I'm sure - Motorola is still spending money to run it until they all get augered in, so it can't be too bad. But even if they can rescue it on the cheap and start suddenly selling the sat phones again for low prices, there's still one big problem.

Iridium has, essentially, an expiration date.

These satellites are all in LEO, and only have a lifespan of about 5-7 years or so before they flame out. The earliest launched satellites are already approaching their end of life, and even buying the network on the cheap doesn't do anything to relieve the replacement cost. Just because the current space assets are cheap doesn't get you out of the cost of building the network all over again over the next decade. It'll still cost billions to put 66 more of these in orbit.

Can they get the critical mass of users needed to make replacement viable before the capital drain gets too bad? Somebody must believe that's the case, but I really doubt it.

- -Josh Turiel

It's possible to not make money, you know

[jelson]

Also, they apparently will get Iridium for about two cents on the dollar. How could not you make money with a deal like that?

As impossible as it sounds to people who write .com business plans, it actually is possible to not make money if you're running a business wherein you're spending more money than people are giving you for your product or service.

Since they're spending close to $1m a month to keep it in the air, advanced quantum calculations reveal that it is possible for them to not make money if they don't generate at least that much revenue. For example, because most people spend most of their time in relatively urban areas, where the cellular infrastructure has been built up to ubiquitous proportions, and satellite phones don't work so well due to line-of-sight problems, multipath interference, etc.

Re: Roll Your Own Geosyncronous Comms Satellites

[BigBlockMopar]

I did alittle research on how feasible it would be to launch a satellite to broadcast DeCSS and other controversial materials via wireless - international jurisdiction, they couldn't shut it down.

Okay. Here's a hint. Don't do your reseach from 1961 Popular Electronics magazine predictions of what things would be like by now.

. In any event, the satellite is actually pretty cheap - about $10-20k to put it into orbit with a nice transmitter and a few solar cells plus the mandatory stuff you'd find in a comm sat.

Sure. And in 1961, they thought we'd have flying cars by now. And there'd be martian colonies, let alone lunar colonies.

I hate to break it to you, but most of the time, the $15-20k figure is *per pound* of launch weight. That's not to build the satellite - that's just to put it into orbit. Russian Soyuz rockets run along the cheap end, primarily because they're statistically more likely to blow up (and destroy your multi-million dollar satellite).

For a comms satellite, you need a receiver and a transmitter, all powered by a solar cell. Such an arrangement is actually called a "transponder", since it just basically mirrors back a given signal on a different frequency and orientation.

Even for the low-band microwave C and Ku band satellite TV systems (mass produced and therefore quite cheap in comparison), receivers are not inexpensive. (And I mean the LNA/downconverter in the feedhorn, not the the set-top box.)

Simply to run any device at frequencies as high as are required for use like this, requires tremendously tight mechanical and eletronic tolerances be enforced. This costs a lot, both in machine tools, skilled employees, and also in a reduced product yield rate.

For sake of example, I often buy magnetrons for work. These aren't microwave oven magnetrons (which aren't for communications and therefore don't have to be too precise). These are radar magnetrons, running in the 12GHz band. RMS power through them is 7 watts. And they operate at normal temperatures (-40c to +70c). And they're damned expensive. Some of the EEV and JRC models I use run in the range of $4,000 - $6,000 each.

Now, consider that most modern satellite transponders run 12W transmit power. That means a bigger magnetron than my $5,000 tubes. And there's another problem: a magnetron is a tube with a magnet around it. Tubes aren't reliable or compact enough to launch, and magnets don't like temperature extremes. We don't use high-powered solid-state magnetron-equivalents in our radar systems because they're just *way* too expensive. Even a small solid-state Gunn diode for a radar speed gun can set you back $5,000 - and that's not even 1/1000th of the power you'd need.

In short, what I'm getting at, I think, is that there's no way in hell you're ever going to find a transmitting device for one transponder, let alone the rest of the transponder, let alone every other part of the satellite, let alone... for anything in the price range you're quoting.

If you really want a Satellite, I have one. It's a chrome emblem off a 1960s Plymouth. It says "Satellite", in letters about 1" tall. And ya know what, just for irony's sake, I'll *give* it to you if you promise to pay to put the thing into geosynchronous orbit.

But you couldn't even get that Satellite into orbit for the money you're talking about.

Doing some actual research

[orpheus]

I applaud all those creative technical minds trying to come up with interesting and useful applications for this networks, but without hard info, we're just pissing in the wind and blowing hot air.

There's a fairly recent and detailed IEEE report on the Iridium network

Here's a chart of competing systems that are up, or will be up soon

Here's a fairly complete description of several current satellite telephone systems with info on frequency allocations, ground stations, and other important network details [has a chapter on iridium]

Here's a article in Test System News testing Iridium handsets and network for real world performance

More to come....

How to make Money on this

[Greyfox]

I've got the perfect business plan:

1) Equip all the satellites with death lasers.

2) Extort billions from every civilized country at death laser point.

3) When the secret agents show up to foil your plan and you capture them, shoot them in the head immediately and personally. Do not gloat about your plans. Do not leave them suspended over a pool of ravenous pirhanas. Do not trust some henchman to do the job for you. Do not show them the large and prominent satellite self-destruct button.

This is a Big Blow to the Astronomic community

[roman_mir]

This is very sad news indeed. I am very sorry that Iridium satelites may not be destroyed after all. These satelites are astronomers' worst nightmare, polluting in forbidden radio ranges, interfering with cold hydrogen frequencies (21.1cm). The world astronomer community was cheering to find out that Iridium satelites were supposed to be brought down and now this....

Buy? Why? Let Iridium Die -- a parody sequel

[orpheus]

Buy? Why? Let Iridium Die
(sequel to "Bye, Bye, Miss Iridium Pie")

Long, long time ago I can still remember how their tech plan made me wince
And I knew if I had their cash
That I could buy the monster stash
It'd take to grasp all that's happened since.

But Motorola made me shiver
With every mission they delivered
Satellites in orbit,
I couldn't take one more bit.
I couldn't look, afraid I'd find
Wall Street had lost its bloody mind.
Something so awkwardly designed... I knew Iridium'd die.

But now it's:
"Buy! Buy! The Iridium pie!"
With just millions we'll get billions, though it's pie in the sky
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy

Do they know the specs we love?
Or do they have faith in stuff above
'Cuz the tech just say it's true?
Oh what a splendid fit they'd throw,
if they understood L.E.O.
And how the orbit's bound to crash real soon.

Do they know the facts and take a stand?
Or is it just an Accounting scam?
Another tax write-off?
A business 'loss' (*cough cough*)

I'm just an aging hardware hack,
with a calculator, and not smoking crack
So they had me rolling on my back
The day they shouted "Buy!"

And they were singing:
"Buy? Why? Let Iridium die!"
Why spend millions to get billions of just pie in the sky?
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy

Well for ten years they've been slick
And the business plan that made me sick
Is not what it's supposed to be.
When investors sang in the court of law
In a place where truth brings on awe
In a voice that sounds like Craig McCaw.

Debating "Should we just bring them down?"
(Scam websites sprouting all around)
The verdict was returned:
The system soon would burn!
And when Slashdot had a thread on use,
the clueless all were running loose
(Even trolls aren't that obtuse!)
"Don't let Iridium die!"

And I'm still singing:
"Buy? Why? Let Iridium die!"
Why spend millions to get billions that's just pie in the sky?
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy

Helter Skelter in the summer swelter.
The VC's offer last second shelter,
Fifty Mill and running costs
Until the plan is finally passed,
by a judge who must be smoking grass
What the heck, it's not like it's *his* cash

For months, we had sweet surcease
From addled threads and press release
Now I just want to cry.
This network just won't die!

Then Katz posts "can't you all see..."
(the tempers fly, as usually)
He compared it all to MP3... the way Iridium died.

We kept on screaming:
"Buy! Buy! The Iridium pie!"
Spend just millions to get billions though it's pie in the sky!
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy

Now don't get me wrong, I love space
It's a sanctified holy place
But here's our chance to start again
So let's get real, let's get smart.
Iridium soon will fall apart
And funding is this devil's only friend

So let's just watch the rockets flare,
the satellites plunge through the air.
While there still is time
(and rebuild it, right this time!)
As the flames all fall from the sky,
let's clap until we think we'll cry
Let's let Iridium die!

We should be singing:
"Buy? Why? Let Iridium die!"
Why spend millions to get billions that's just pie in the sky?
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy

I met a man who had a clue, and asked him what else we could do
But he just smiled and turned away.
I want to go up five hundred, miles, where I'd kept my tech dreams as a child,
But the man there said manned payloads wouldn't pay.
In the halls the techies sighed, the coders laughed, and the testers cried,
Not a word was spoken, the promises all were broken.
Like the other dreams they shot to hell, like anti-grav and FTL
and condos stationed at 5-L,
But they fund Iridium... why?

'Cuz they're still singing
"Buy! Buy! The Iridium pie!"
Spent just millions to get billions but it's pie in the sky
The good ideas must've all gone dry
So the VC's and the bankers all buy
So the VC's and the bankers all buy