Iridium Returns From The Dead. Again.

Tjp($)pjT writes "A Canadian company which bought Iridium for roughly a quarter of a cent on the dollar has scheduled the re-opening of the service. Rescued from a blazing death of dropping all 66 sats and their spares out of orbit to burn up on reentry, the 5 BILLION dollar system was purchased on the block for 25 million. The US Government contracted with the service for unlimited air time for 20,000 phones for two years with other options. More can be read here."

Comments

Teledesic (Bill Gates' version of Irridium)

[robhranac]

I used to work for a tech company that evaluated these systems. Back in the day Irridium was thought to be a total joke - the idea was (apparently, correctly) that MEO (medium earth orbit) satellites were just too difficult and expensive to use for profitable telecom.

However, all the heat went off Irridium and its 60+ MEO satellites when Gates and McCaw backed Teledesic, which called for something like 200+ LEO satellites to deliver broadband Internet worldwide. Obivously, LEO satellites are even more complex and difficult to manage (handoffs, launches, etc.) that MEO.

I just look up Teledesic, though, and it is still going strong. Clearly still vaporware, but it is interesting that they have not given up in light of Irridium's continuing woes.

Latest News From Canadian Iridium Satelite LTD

[Masem]

The latest press release from the Canadian company that bought the Iridium system, Iridium Satelite LTD, announced their latest plans for the failing system. They plan to try to land all 66 satelites on the asteroid Eros. "If the United States thinks they can outdo us by landing a dinky space craft on that asteroid, they're aboot to get another thing coming, eh?".

Rumor has it they will land the satelites to either spell the word "7-Up" or "Chairhead".

(Oh wait, I already did this joke!, doh!)

Article is misunderstanding market segment.

[Dyelar]

The market segment for this service is not the normal cell phone user as they point out. They fail to mention that the real market for this service is in avionics. If you are sitting up in a plane, well, to say the least, cell phones don't work. The signal hitting a ton of towers at once is not a good thing for the old cell phones. The government and airlines use these phones in planes. The government also uses them the way that the article says, for when a cell phone isn't going to work. Say for instance when you are going to be traveling all over the world. (Yeah, Yeah, let me take my US phone to Europe, oops, what do you mean it doesn't work there.)

I just found it surprising that they failed to mention the aviation industry, since that is who uses, sells, and produces a lot of the phones.

Re:Will something PLEASE crash?

[albeit unknown]

You're obviously not a Windows user.

Will something PLEASE crash?

[nufsaid]

I can't stand waiting any more...
The endless disappointment of Mir being
kept in orbit...
The on-the-edge-of-your-seat-anticipation
waiting for dozens of satellites to crash
and burn... only to be DENIED!

Hurry up and crash something already...
I'm not satisfied.