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Iridium Saved By the US Dept of Defense
mccready was one of quite a bunch of people to send us the news trinket from CNNfn . It seems that the on-again, off-again Iridium system has at least another two years. The US Department of Defense has stepped in with $72 million, while another buyer is found. The reason? To avoid 'triggering possible "widespread anxiety" on re-entry.'
I would start the deorbit of Iridium tomorrow. Then I would seriously spank the designers and anyone else who dares to put up transmitters that intefere with radio astronomy
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I concur... take the latest bird NOAA-16 put up by NOAA recently, it cost $350m to build and launch, that's just for a single polar orbiting bird, and this was also considered doing it on the cheap because they used an old titan (?) rocket from the 60's that was designed to deliver ballistic missiles.
$72m is an absolute give away, they spend about half that on the maintenance of Air Force one for the president every year.
Tax Writeoff
If Iridium ever comes down, Motorola can turn to the IRS and say "Even though we made around $44 billion USD this year (intial projection value for 2001, though this has been revised), we just lost a $5 billion dollar system. Please have pity on us." And the IRS will cut them some slack.
The irony of this is that in a manner of thinking, the US governnment will have partially funded the cost of Iridium through lost tax revenue. So the DoD buying it seems strangely logical, given that a) the government would have footed the bill in one way or another and b) it's better to have a working orbital communications system than a rain of space garbage.
PS: I seem to recall an old animation on the Macintosh that showed a Star Destroyer-esque ship from the underside. A fleet of spacecraft flew out of the hold, there was a pause, and then a bunch of crap started coming out of the hold as the words "SPACE GARBAGE" flashed on the screen.
Man, that cracked me up at the time.
-- "I am disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see that I am serious!"
Completely useless, heavy objects with a bit of propulsion ability.
Uses: To set in the path of competeting countries spy sattelites.
Think about it. Russia worked for years and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to perfect the "Sattelite Killer"
The US DOD bought one for about a buck fifty.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
In a moment of drunken weakness, my ex-girlfriend and I allowed a burning, premature "re-entry". In retrospect, it has triggered quite a bit of anxiety in both of us.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
If you're not wasted, the day is.
"Is it just me, or does Iridium have more lives than a cat? I mean, hey, being slated for destruction two, or even three, times is one thing, but when even the US DoD steps in to take up the slack, you've got to wonder if those satellites are ever coming down."
I tracked a lot of the Iridium financial and PR stuff in the early days (several evil MBA projects ). Buried pretty deep in this info was the fact that the US Department of Defense was either a large potential customer, or a large actual customer but the details were secret. I have been wondering for a while if we would see something like this - it seems pretty clear now that DoD is making use of this system and doesn't want to give it up. Interesting.
sPh
Next time you hear those in big business praising the vigor of the free market, and being critical of the welfare state, just think of the Defense Department. The Defense Department is the welfare mother for our corporate failures.
1. The DoD (and the Air Force in particular) bought into the Iridium concept early on. Ever since the Gulf War, the pressure has been on to use Commercial Of the Shelf (COTS) means when possible to reduce operating costs. Iridium gives the DoD global voice/fax/data for a fraction of the cost of deploying a pure military system.
2. As part of the deal with Iridium, the DoD built an access site that connects the Iridium system into Defense phone and data networks.
3. Per this press release, Iridium forms part of a critical link between AF leadership and foward deployed forces.
4. For other missions, such as Search and Rescue, Iridium phones have become backups for regular systems and in some instances the primary means for emergency communications.
These are all capabilities that the DoD won't want to easily give up. $72 Million over two years is a drop in the bucket compared to cost of developing and deploying a new constellation, as well as the back-end costs of converting over the missions listed above.
Not only can you hide signal in it, but one of the up/down links is located in Quantico, Va., if memeory serves. Extremely convienient for three letter agencies.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
- Iridium will not burn in vain
- The world will still have its own satellite telephone network
Bad:
- The astronomers will still curse Iridium for its "flare" effect
- Normal people will never use Iridium again...
Mercury News report
: FEAR OF PUBLIC OUTCRY CITED: Despite the relatively small risk, an interagency group led by the Justice Department was ``extremely unhappy at the prospect of a 14-month mass de-orbit,'' a background paper handed out at the Pentagon said. ``The group worried that this might create widespread anxiety and lead to a public outcry for ill-considered government action,'' the document said.
The Pentagon got a global phone system real cheap. They can encrypt all their transmissions, with add-ons or Iridium's existing feature set, and they have unlimited (well, up to the capacity anyway) use of the thing. Plus all the relationships with the local PTTs are toast, so they don't have to worry about China Telecom controlling them when the Green Berets are roaming around Tibet. Sounds like a great deal for the taxpayer!
sulli
RTFJ.
Since the DoD is going to save the iridium project, they might as well need some ideas as to what to do with them. I was thinking something along the lines of:
Turning them into a television service that broadcasts "Ishtar" to puerto rico 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Streaming porn service for RV'ers across the nation
Anonymous spam remailer
seti?
the DOD pays $36M per year and has 20.000 phones. so they pay
36.000.000,-/20.000=1800USDannually for each phone
which comes out to
=> $150 / month, unlimited minutes, works world-wide.
now, if you ask me, the DOD has made an excellent deal here. plus, they get encryption and independence of local networks thrown in for free.
hey, i would go for a cell phone like that any day!
Gotta love our administration... rather than address the problem through education or doing additional reentry studies, they spend shut-up money to postpone the problem until the next administration. Those satellites are coming down sometime, it's just a matter of when!
Why not take the $72 mil and buy everyone in the U.S. an ice cream cone instead?
Granted, I don't understand the underlying costs for such an operation, but surely all the brilliant minds in the world can come up with something?
Why don't they use the birds for target practice as they re-enter? That way, we get to test the system and calm the public. What could be better? I'm sure DoD has some extra rockets they need to get rid of anyways.
Yeah, but it is thick enough in LEO to cause a satellite to deorbit in a couple years, as opposed to geosynchronous orbits, which are stable for much, much longer.
Can't they just send all the satellites to Quasi?
On the serious side, I guess we should have all known that only the government could save this. After all, everybody else figured it was worthless, so naturally they have to spend our tax dollars on 'em.
That stuff about lots of reentries causing problems is bogus. Some people at DoD probably want them as yet-another-backup-channel in the event of a military communication problem. Why don't they just come out and say that?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
At least then I would have a reason for the invulnerability
/. a$$hole know-it-all telling you what the 'real problem is'... ;)
Number one reason Iridium will not be de-oribited:$5,000,000,000 it cost to put it up.
'Everyone' obviously sees the value of the $5B array of sats 'we' have already put up - collectively the planet sees it as a usefull asset. The problem is* corporatists have corrupted our communities and our minds - we feel powerless - to the point where no one is willing to say "we can run them Non-Profit for the all people" or set up a quick and dirty 'world organization' and get quick commitments of government dollars to fund their usage... why is it that the next owners have to be a For-Profit corporation??? People of the planet obviously see the value - why cant 'civic will' step up and assume ownership???
With the alternative being de-orbiting $5,000,000,000 - what seems like a more plausable/reasonable/sane idea? How did 'profit making corporations' become the only method of force/action/will on the planet?? Why the HELL are we standing around hoping some corporatist is going to step up and save this resource 'for us'?
*Just what you need - another
I think it was a great idea: Unclassified but Sensitive information could be phoned back to the US without high level personel having to locate a STU (secure telephone unit). Bypass landlines and possible wiretaps, and you can call from anywhere. I believe conversations from the handset to the satellite were encrypted, so it was a great investment. Of course, the Iridium shut down around 6 months later and the phones were useless...
-- "I am disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see that I am serious!"
Doesn't the DoD also have an expensive missle defense system? Couldn't they instead let those Iridium satellites fall to earth as targets to test out their precious new toys?
AIUI, they're paying the receiver, who will use the money to pay off companies that Iridium owed money to. Not investors, but people like landlords, electric, car leasing, maybe salaries, etc. All people who've lost out through no fault of their own.
Remember that it's a MILSPEC that requires that hammer to be made out of a cobalt nickle aluminum alloy, be exactly 265.09987 mm long weigh exactly 170.25 grams, hold a magnetic charge of 2500 Gauss, be shockproof. And oh yeah, we only need 17 of them. The process for publishing the bid spec probably costs $500,000 while the setup charges for the manufacturer probably run into the millions.
It's not that standards are bad. It's that there are so many.
Actually its funny you mention the amount of lives that Iridium has had. I was thinking Mir was the biggest feline in space with all of its on agains/off agains but Iridium just might be the prize winner here. Maybe we should ask for a recount. Sad though, as hard as it is to get any kind of money for space projects, that the DOD would just fork over 72 million for this commercial space casualty.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
The military has stepped in because Iridium is currently being used. By who? You guessed it. Its not going down until they get a replacement up there.
Nobody would give a crap if you sent down a satelite a day into the pacific. Nobody would even notice it anymore than they notice the hundreds of pounds of other cosmic crap that rains down on this planet every day.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Let me see.....$72 Million, 20000 Users, 2 Years. That works out at $150/Month, for unlimited use.. and as any two phones can call each other over the network, sound to me the DOD have a bargin.
What the article fails to mention is that the State Department already owns 2,000 Iridium handsets for use in remote spots.
There is a growing need for the encrypted services that will be made possible through a special "sleeve"" outfitted for secure handsets.
The Pentagon already owns about 1,600 Iridium satellite phones.
It will get unlimited air time for up to 20,000 government users for $3 million a month under the deal.
This will be ideal for easing the current crush of the U.S. military's ultra-high-frequency mesh for networking and point-to-point communications.
Currently, the department's communications satellites provide less than half such services required by U.S. forces, crowding lower-priority users off the airways.
Tax Write-off? Not exactly. Motorola probably took a loss in the bankruptcy, so they get a big enough tax write-off for their investment (which isn't the full five B's). What they'll have to do, though, is write down a loss for the 4th Quarter and this will affect corporate earnings, so it's not all a bed of roses for them.
It wasn't completely "worth more down than up", but it was getting close. This way, at least, the new Iridium company gets to survive while most of the investors, like Motorola, swallow the loss of their investment.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
The DoD which is chartered with tracking space junk and reentry of same would probably spend more than 72 million just following all of the deorbit paths down and releasing normal operational communiques saying "nothing to see here, just move along..."
It's just cheaper to pay to leave them there. And before you trot out your "Not my tax dollars !!!" warhorse just remember there are lots of things your tax dollars pay for that you should have no expectation or desire to take advantage of. Prisons are a good example of that.
http://spacedaily.com/news/iridium-00g.html
It is disclosed.
What's preventing the DoD from turning around, twiddiling a few bits, and cranking out a few radios, and have a nice, nifty, neat, new "not quite military quality" comms channel? Makes sense to me. --Reality is for people who can't handle drugs.
What the DoD should do is spend all that money on a big parade to celebrate the Iridium re-entry into orbit. As the pieces enter the atmosphere everyone can watch them burn up like fireworks and celebrate in techno-pagan style a la "Max Headroom". All this new technology, we need to get on the ball making up new holidays, and Science Fiction has showed us enough examples that we should get on that already!
What about the anxiety of wasting $72,000,000 tax dollars to satisify the minds of those who have watched a few too many made-for-television 'Asteroid' movies?
---
seumas.com
Kiss The Blade's hilarious MO is to make straight-faced "devil's advocate" posts with just enough misinformation and logical fallacy to send the average intelligent-but-gullible slashdot user into a blindly raging counterattack. Normally, the only reason I don't mod him (-1, troll) is that unlike the hot grits morons he's so good at it. 23 replies, 6 replies, 39 replies, 11 replies... he picks up everything from flaming rants to philosophical theses. That earns respect.
But damnit, KTB, what are you doing now???
This sets a bad precedent. The DoD is acting to prevent totally unjustified anxiety on the part of millions of Americans. I thought the function of Government Departments was to do what is right, not what people think is right
I totally agree with this. What is going on? Did you get bored and decide to write something honest instead of baiting people? Did you realize that many of us were on to you weeks ago, and decide to throw in a monkey wrench by posting something reasonable? Is your karma dangerously close to the default score: -1 threshold?
I don't detect any hyperbole, feigned ignorance, or baiting here. And what scares me is the thought that maybe KTB hasn't changed, maybe I'm just in the select group of misinformed idiots being parodied by one of his posts, and don't realize it...
(Score -1: Confused)
The company that put the satelites up went bankrupt, rather than a) selling them cheap, or b) abandoning them so others can claim them it is c) planning to destroy them if it doesn't get millions.
Once you put something into a stable orbit there isn't any reason to send it back down. Any mass in orbit is eventually going to be valuable simply in that it is already there. But, corporate idiocy strickes again "If we can't get our high fees, we'll just destroy our expensive investment." I simply don't understand this attitude: the money has already been spent, crashing the satelites results in an utter loss, any payment for the satelites is at least something.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Is it just me, or does Iridium have more lives than a cat? I mean, hey, being slated for destruction two, or even three, times is one thing, but when even the US DoD steps in to take up the slack, you've got to wonder if those satellites are ever coming down.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd say that the Iridium project was actually an integral part of the new global monitoring system the US uses to track late model vehicles and toothpaste choices. At least then I would have a reason for the invulnerability of the Iridium system.
As it stands, I can only assume that it's the aliens that have kept Iridium flying so the astronomers can't see them. It wasn't a design fluke that the satellites wreak havoc on astronomers; the aliens got tired of hiding behind the moon, so they set up Iridium so they can take field trips around the earth.
You know, on the other hand, perhaps it's just an annoying thing that just won't die... kind of like Windows (or FORTRAN), I guess.
I bet Reagan called this one in. Now he can finally have that Star Wars Defense System that he always wanted...as soon as they enable the hidden laser grid on the birds.
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Let me give you the lowdown
The sum of 72 million US dollars is a small investment compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars which the DoD has already invested in developing technologies based on Iridium. Since the inception of the project, the DoD has been developing communications systems based on Iridium. Now that they are ready to field them, the plan is to destroy the satellites. D'oh! When the announcement to destroy the satellites was made last spring, I asked one of the DoD's communications planners (forgive me if I obfuscate the actual identity) if the DoD could buy Iridium to protect their investment. According to this fellow, this would require renegotiating a maze of international agreements made for Iridium. It's one thing for a country to negotiate a deal with a private corporation. It's quite another thing to make the same deal with the US Department of Defense! The DoD is simiply attempting to buy extra time for Iridium before eating the loss.