Iridium Communications Inc. (formerly Iridium Satellite LLC) is a publicly traded

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company headquartered in

McLean, Virginia McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its prox ...

. Iridium operates the

Iridium satellite constellation The Iridium satellite constellation provides L band voice and data information coverage to satellite phones, pagers and integrated transceivers over the entire surface of Earth. Iridium Communications owns and operates the constellation, addit ...

, a system of 66 active satellites and 9 in-orbit spares used for worldwide voice and data communication from hand-held

satellite phone A satellite telephone, satellite phone or satphone is a type of mobile phone that connects to other phones or the telephone network by radio through orbiting satellites instead of terrestrial cell sites, as cellphones do. The advantage of a sa ...

s and other transceiver units. The nearly

polar orbit A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited (usually a planet such as the Earth, but possibly another body such as the Moon or Sun) on each revolution. It has an inclination of about ...

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 by

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Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic ...

to Gilbert Grosvenor, the great-grandson of

Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and T ...

and chairman of the

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Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...

provided the technology and major financial backing. The logo of the company represents the

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. The company derives its name from the

chemical element A chemical element is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their atomic nucleus, nuclei, including the pure Chemical substance, substance consisting only of that species. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical elements canno ...

iridium Iridium is a chemical element with the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group, it is considered the second-densest naturally occurring metal (after osmium) with a density o ...

, which has an

atomic number The atomic number or nuclear charge number (symbol ''Z'') of a chemical element is the charge number of an atomic nucleus. For ordinary nuclei, this is equal to the proton number (''n''p) or the number of protons found in the nucleus of ever ...

of 77, equaling the initial number of satellites which were planned to be deployed. On August 13, 1999, nine months after the launch of the organization, the founding company went into

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...

. 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. The cost of service dissuaded many potential users. Reception indoors was difficult and the hand held devices, when compared to terrestrial cellular

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

s were bulkier and more expensive, both of which discouraged adoption among potential users. Mismanagement is another major factor 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. After Iridium filed bankruptcy, it cited "difficulty gaining subscribers." The initial commercial failure of Iridium had a damping effect on other proposed commercial satellite constellation projects, including

Teledesic Teledesic was a company founded in the 1990s to build a commercial broadband satellite internet constellation. Using low-Earth-orbiting satellites small antennas could be used to provide uplinks of as much as 100 Mbit/s and downlinks of up to 720 ...

. Other schemes (

Orbcomm ''ORBCOMM'' is an American company that offers industrial Internet of things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) communications hardware, software and services designed to track, monitor, and control fixed and mobile assets in markets including ...

, ICO Global Communications, and

Globalstar Globalstar, Inc. is an American satellite communications company that operates a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation for satellite phone and low-speed data communications. The Globalstar second-generation constellation consists of 24 lo ...

) followed Iridium into bankruptcy protection, while a number of other proposed schemes were never constructed. In August 2000,

announced that the Iridium satellites would have to be deorbited; however, they remained in orbit and operational. In December 2000, the US government stepped in to save Iridium by providing $72 million in exchange for a two-year contract and approving the fire-sale of the company from US bankruptcy court for $25 million, in March 2001. This erased over $4 billion in debt. Iridium service was restarted in 2001 by the newly founded Iridium Satellite LLC, which was owned by a group of private investors. On February 10, 2009, Iridium 33 collided with a defunct Russian satellite,

Kosmos 2251 Kosmos-2251 (russian: Космос-2251 meaning ''Cosmos 2251''), was a Russian Strela-2M military communications satellite. It was launched into Low Earth orbit from Site 132/1 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 04:17 UTC on 16 June 1993, by a Kos ...

, over

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...

. Two large debris clouds were created.

Iridium NEXT launch campaign

Iridium replaced its original constellation by sending 75 new Iridium satellites into space on

SpaceX Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pay ...

rockets. The campaign also consisted of upgrades to Iridium ground infrastructure. The

Iridium NEXT The Iridium satellite constellation provides L band voice and data information coverage to satellite phones, pagers and integrated transceivers over the entire surface of Earth. Iridium Communications owns and operates the constellation, addi ...

launch campaign was announced in 2007. Within three years, Iridium completed financing and began work on launching new satellites. In June 2010, Iridium announced a fixed-price contract with

Thales Alenia Space Thales Alenia Space () is a Franco-Italian aerospace manufacturer. A joint venture between the French technology corporation Thales Group (67%) and Italian defense conglomerate Leonardo (33%), the company is the largest satellite manufactur ...

for the design and construction of the next-generation satellites for the upgraded constellation. Two weeks later, Iridium announced a $492 million contract designating the

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pay ...

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). On January 14, 2017, 10 years after the campaign was first announced, the first of eight Iridium NEXT launches took place with SpaceX from

Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg may refer to: * Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name * USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida * Vandenberg Sp ...

in California. Over the next two years, Iridium sent an additional 65 satellites into low Earth orbit to completely replace the original satellite constellation. The final Iridium NEXT launch took place on January 11, 2019, less than 2 years after the first launch. The

network covers the entire

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...

, including poles, oceans and airways, with 66 satellites, with the remaining 9 acting as active backups, for a total of 75 launched. Six remain on the ground as spares for a total of 81 built.

Present status

Iridium Satellite LLC merged with a

special-purpose acquisition company A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC; ), also known as a "blank check company", is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring a private company, thus making it public without going through the traditional ...

(GHQ) created by the investment bank Greenhill & Co. in September 2009 to create Iridium Communications Inc. The public company trades on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

under the symbol "IRDM". The company surpassed one million subscribers in March 2018. Revenue for the full year 2018 was US$523.0 million with operational

EBITDA A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA, pronounced , , or ) is a measure of a company's profitability of the operating business only, thus before any effects of indebtedness, stat ...

of US$302.0 million, a 14% increase from $265.6 million in the prior year. Iridium manages several operations centers, including

Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...

and

Leesburg, Virginia Leesburg is a town in the state of Virginia, and the county seat of Loudoun County. Settlement in the area began around 1740, which is named for the Lee family, early leaders of the town and ancestors of Robert E. Lee. Located in the far northeas ...

, United States. The system is being used by the U.S. Department of Defense. Matt Desch is the CEO of Iridium LLC.

Hosted Payload Alliance

Iridium is a founding member of the

Hosted Payload A hosted payload is a module attached to a commercial satellite with communications circuitry that operates independently of the main spacecraft but which shares the satellite's power supply and transponders. The concept has been also been referred ...

Alliance (HPA), a satellite industry alliance program. Membership in the HPA is open to satellite operators, satellite manufacturers, system integrators, and other interested parties.

Air safety communications

In July 2011, the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

(FAA) issued a ruling that approves the use of Iridium for

Future Air Navigation System The Future Air Navigation System (FANS) is an avionics system which provides direct data link communication between the pilot and the air traffic controller. The communications include air traffic control clearances, pilot requests and position re ...

(FANS) data links, enabling satellite data links with air-traffic control for aircraft flying in the FANS environment, including areas not served by Inmarsat (above or below 70 degrees latitude) which includes polar routes.

Global Maritime Distress and Safety System

In January 2020, the Iridium constellation was certified for use in the

Global Maritime Distress and Safety System The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) is a worldwide system for automated emergency signal communication for ships at sea developed by the United Nations' International Maritime Organization (IMO) as part of the SOLAS Conventi ...

(GMDSS). The certification ended a monopoly on the provision of maritime distress services that had previously been held by Inmarsat since the system became operational in 1999.

Iridium satellite constellation

The Iridium system requires 66 active satellites in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

to complete its constellation and 9 spare satellites are kept in-orbit to serve in case of failure. The satellites are in six

al planes at a height of approximately . Satellites communicate with neighboring satellites via

Ka band The Ka band (pronounced as either "kay-ay band" or "ka band") is a portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 26.5–40 gigahertz (GHz), i.e. wavelengths from slightly over one centim ...

intersatellite links to relay communications to and from

ground station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves f ...

s. 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,

. The new satellites were sent into space on SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicles from

Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 4 Space Launch Complex 4 (SLC-4) is a launch and landing site at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, U.S. It has two pads, both of which are used by SpaceX for Falcon 9, one for launch operations, and other as Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) for Spac ...

in California over the course of eight launches between January 2017 and January 2019. On January 14, 2017, SpaceX launched 10 of the new Iridium satellites into orbit. The second launch of

satellites took place on June 25, 2017 on a

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal o ...

Falcon 9 rocket Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pay ...

out of

. This was the second of eight scheduled launches. The third launch of 10 NEXT satellites took place on October 9, 2017. On December 22, 2017, ten additional satellites were deployed after a successful launch on a SpaceX

. On May 22, SpaceX successfully launched an additional five

satellites from

. On January 11, 2019, the final ten satellites were placed in orbit by

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.

Wi-Fi Hotspots

In 2014, Iridium began to offer the Iridium Go!

wi-fi hotspot A hotspot is a physical location where people can obtain Internet access, typically using Wi-Fi technology, via a wireless local-area network (WLAN) using a router connected to an Internet service provider. Public hotspots may be created ...

, which can also be used as a distress beacon under certain circumstances. As of September 2020, Iridium's manufacturing contractor, Beam Communications, had built 50,000 of these devices.

Two-way satellite messengers

In 2017,

Garmin Garmin Ltd. (shortened to Garmin, stylized as GARMIN, and formerly known as ProNav) is an American, Swiss-domiciled multinational technology company founded in 1989 by Gary Burrell and Min Kao in Lenexa, Kansas, United States, with headquarte ...

announced inReach SE+ and inReach Explorer+ satellite communicators, which use Iridium satellite network for global coverage. Garmin inReach mini, a satellite messenger with more compact dimensions, was announced a year later. These devices can send and receive text messages with any cell phone number, email address or another inReach device, as well as to provide location sharing, navigation and direct communication options to emergency services. ZOLEO satellite communicator is a satellite communication device which uses Bluetooth connection to provide two-way messaging to connected smartphone or tablet devices via global Iridium network when cellular or Wi-Fi coverage is unavailable.

Pagers

Two pagers were made for the Iridium network – the

9501 and

Kyocera is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommunic ...

SP-66K. These are one-way devices that could receive messages sent in the form of

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

. The one-way paging service is still operational, . Messages are delivered to pre-selected "MDAs" which cover a certain geographic area. Three of these MDAs may be selected on a web-based portal or updated automatically if the paging service is bound to an Iridium phone. Each country has its own MDA based on its

country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

; some of the larger countries are divided into several MDAs, while separate MDAs exist for sections of ocean and common aeronautic routes. Pagers are assigned with telephone numbers in area code 480 and can also be contacted using email, SMS and the web-based interface used to send messages to Iridium phones.

Other satellite phones

Several other Iridium-based telephones exist, such as

payphone A payphone (alternative spelling: pay phone) is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic outdoor areas, with prepayment by inserting money (usually coins) or by billing a credit or debi ...

s, and equipment intended for installation on ships and aircraft. The DPL handset made by NAL Research combined with a 9522 transceiver is used for some of these products. This handset provides a

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

nearly identical to that of the 9505 series phones.

Standalone transceiver units

These can be used for data-logging applications in remote areas (as in data collection satellites). Some types of

buoy A buoy () is a floating device that can have many purposes. It can be anchored (stationary) or allowed to drift with ocean currents. Types Navigational buoys * Race course marker buoys are used for buoy racing, the most prevalent form of y ...

s, such as those used for the tsunami warning system, use Iridium satellites to communicate with their base. The remote device is programmed to call or send short burst data (SBD) messages to the base at specified intervals, or it can be set to accept calls in order for it to offload its collected data. The following transceivers have been released over the years: *Iridium Core 9523 – Similar to the 9522B, a modular transceiver released in 2012, designed to be an embedded solution. *Iridium 9522B – A transceiver released in late 2008, is smaller than the 9522A and has similar features. It also supports Circuit-Switched Data (CSD), not just SBD. *Iridium 9522A – Based on the 9522, some variants have built in GPS and autonomous reporting functions. Supports SBD. *Motorola 9522 – Last Motorola transceiver, supports outgoing SMS but no SBD. *Motorola 9520 – Original transceiver module, does not support outgoing SMS or SBD. Designed for use in vehicles with accompanying handset

Short burst data modems

These devices support only SBD for

Internet of things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other com ...

(IoT) services and do not use a SIM card. *Iridium 9601 – Supports only SBD, several tracking devices and other products have been built around this modem. It was an Iridium manufactured product designed as an OEM module for integration into applications that only use the Iridium Short Burst Data Service. Short Burst Data applications are supported through an RS-232 interface. Examples of these applications include maritime vessel tracking or automatic vehicle tracking. *Iridium 9602 – Smaller, cheaper version of 9601 (released in 2010). *Iridium 9603 – One-fourth the volume and half the footprint of 9602

Iridium OpenPort

Iridium OpenPort is a broadband satellite voice and data communications system for maritime vessels. The system is used for crew calling and e-mail services on sea vessels such as merchant fleets, government and navy vessels, fishing fleets and personal yachts. Iridium operates at only 2.2 to 3.8 kbit/s, which requires very aggressive voice compression and decompression

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

s. (By comparison, AMR used in 3G phones requires a minimum of 4.75 kbit/s, G.729 requires 6.4 kbit/s, and iLBC requires 13.33 kbit/s.) Latency for data connections averages 1800 ms round-trip, with a mode of 1300 to 1400 ms and a minimum around 980 ms. Latency is highly variable depending on the path data takes through the satellite constellation as well the need for retransmissions due to errors, which may be around 2 to 3% for mobile originated packets under good conditions.

Iridium Certus

One of the Iridium NEXT services is Iridium Certus, a globally available satellite broadband which is capable of up to 704 Kbps of bandwidth across maritime, aviation, land mobile, government, and

IoT The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...

applications. Terminals for the service are provided by Cobham, Intellian Technologies and

Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; grc-gre, Θαλῆς; ) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regarded ...

References

External links

*
Application of Iridium telecommunications to oceanographic and polar research

''Iridium Data Modem''
(PDF)
''Technical success and economic failure''
(PDF), MIT {{Authority control Satellite telephony Companies based in McLean, Virginia Communications satellite operators Mobile phone companies of the United States Companies listed on the Nasdaq Satellite Internet access Data collection satellites