Iridium satellite constellation | Hacker News Reader

Iridium satellite constellation

en.wikipedia.org

52 pointsMichaelCORS43 comments

Being an Iridium investor in the late 1990s was quite an experience. This was the dotcom boom, and Iridium looked like the next step in communications-- imagine being able to make a call or send data from anywhere in the world? Without the expense and cost of building out the cell network!

Shares in the company built in value with each launch as each launch put another major chunk of infrastructure in orbit.

This was totally different than those dotcom trifles like "Flooz" who you knew would just never amount to anything.

I still have my Iridium share certificate.

Alas, there was a bankruptcy, common holders were wiped out, and while it wasn't the total scam that GlobalStar and Global Crossing (The latter I consider to be a deliberate fraud much worse than Enron) it sure felt kinda shady.

I can say we're not in a stock bubble now in part because things like this are not going on the way they were.

Iridium was an expensive lesson for me. If only I'd put that money into Apple-- and the kicker-- I thought about it seriously.

That said, over the years, I've made a lot more from stock picking than I ever have from any index fund. It's not as hard as people make out, or as impossible... but you do learn lessons. And iridium was a lesson.

On some level, I'm glad it's still operational, though I think it's sad that so many years have passed and the network hasn't advanced significantly enough to give terrestrial carriers a run for their money.

> It's not as hard as people make out, or as impossible... but you do learn lessons. And iridium was a lesson.

What was the lesson you learned from Iridium?

I am presuming you have something fairly broad, like "don't invest in companies with X type of business plan." As opposed to something narrow, like "Don't invest in Iridium."

I was pretty excited about this when they were putting them up but of course I was just a kid so I didn't lose any money investing in them. :-)

I am excited to see that the Iridium NEXT [1] constellation is on the SpaceX launch manifests [2] not too far down the list. There are seven iridium flights in line. Hopefully this time they can find a bigger market and drive down costs.

[1] https://www.iridium.com/About/IridiumNEXT.aspx

[2] http://www.spacex.com/missions

What's also exciting about Iridium NEXT is they will have a hosted payload that will do global tracking of aircraft. Right now organizations like the FAA and NAV CANADA are very dependent on ground stations to track planes. Satellite tracking would be a big step forward: http://www.aireon.com/AboutAireon/AnIridiumInnovation

How does that compare to Immarsat?

Inmarsat's constellation is not global (pole to pole) coverage. Iridium's value proposition here (with a subsidiary named Aireon) is global ADS-B coverage.

Yeah, nearly missed that. Heres the quote:

"In June 2010, Iridium signed the largest commercial rocket launch deal ever, a US$492 million contract with SpaceX to launch tens of Iridium NEXT satellites on multiple Falcon 9 launchers in 2015–2017 from Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 3.[15]"

What was the reason for bankruptcy? was it because it was not able to compete with Cellular operators?

Very high airtime costs. The system has great coverage, but low bandwidth. Also, the handset has to be able to see the sky. When Iridium was planned, it was expected that most mobile units would be vehicle-mounted, not handsets.

Motorola expected to sell a lot more hardware (read phones) and when there wasn't demand they cut bait.

IIRC the antenna was also _huge_ making it completely unpractical for handsets.

Not that big. The small antenna was a primary feature of the system. They even make candy bar style phones with built in antennas.

https://www.iridium.com/ProductList.aspx?productCategoryID=1

At least you didn't invest in Teledesic...

Iridium turned out to be very useful. The U.S. Government put in money after the bankruptcy to keep it alive, in exchange for half of the airtime. After the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, that turned out to be very useful.

The system has satellite-to-satellite links, and a call between two Iridium handsets doesn't go through ground stations. Back in 1999, the FBI was concerned that they wouldn't be able to wiretap Iridium calls. A capability for that was added. When the Government took a share in the system, network control was moved from Schaumburg, IL, to the Virginia suburbs near CIA HQ.

Something to the effect of the low earth orbit and the number of satellites makes Iridium really useful in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan.

The FBI SHOULDN'T be able to wiretap calls though. That was an important feature, not a bug.

Iridium flares are a really neat night sky phenomenon to look for. The predictions can be found on satellite tracking sites [1]. I caught one by accident when I noticed a satellite passing overhead on my way to my car one night. Over the next few seconds it increased to dazzling brightness, and then it disappeared just as quickly. I couldn't believe my luck.

[1] http://www.heavens-above.com/IridiumFlares.aspx

You are very lucky. I had a script scrape that site (not sure if I broke their TOS) and send me an SMS about 5-10 minutes before a visible pass of something bright including Iridium flares, but I found that even if you know the exact time and direction of where it will happen it is still easy to miss it. It's very nice to see one when you do. If the sky is dark you can often see the satellite before and after it goes bright, but I've seen one shine through a blue sky which must be perplexing to spot by accident by people who don't know about these.

I once saw one accidentally, when I was lying in a garden around 03:00 just watching stars. Checked at HeavensAbove afterwards to confirm I haven't just imagined it.

I used to do a lot of Iridium hunting in high school, sometimes waking up at 04:30 to spot the morning ones (which, given that I also stayed up/was waking up early sometimes to watch Shuttle launches/landings on NASA TV - in my timezones they were often in the middle of the night - pretty much ensured that I was often quite sleepy at school).

I thought this was pretty interesting (http://www.heavens-above.com/IssHeight.aspx?) The mean height of the ISS over a two year period.

I had no idea that atmospheric drag had that great an effect at a 400km altitude.

For anyone looking for more info on the collision referenced in the article, http://www.agi.com/media-center/multimedia/current-events/ir... has a video depicting the debris path.

I must have been preoccupied back in 2009, because this is the first I've heard of it.

EDIT: That video file plays wonky for me. Youtube has it as well: http://youtu.be/_o7EKlqCE20

The RockBLOCK is even compatible with Raspberry Pi! https://www.rock7mobile.com/products-rockblock

That is very cool... I remember walking into an Iridium store back in the day trying to think of way to justify a purchase of one of the phones to tinker with (I couldn't come up with a rationale). Can't think of a pressing need for a RockBLOCK either, but it's a neat device.

Nice to see that the iridium fiasco has resulted in some long tail utility

edit: here's a page with a proof of concept with an arduino hookup: http://makezine.com/projects/make-37/iridiumsatellite/

The Iridium GO! device is a pretty cool Wi-Fi hotspot that works anywhere outside in the world.

$1.26 - $3.77 per thousand characters... wow.

I think it'd be cheaper to build your own acoustic modem and glue it to a handset.

Undoubtedly. But a handset will only operate where a cell signal is available; Iridium will operate anywhere on the planet, so long as you have line-of-sight to the sky.

I think he meant iridium handset but I could be wrong.

He did mean that, but it wouldn't help - voice calls are very expensive on Iridium.

Last I checked (~2 years back) it was 7$ / minute.

Well if you are stranded half way across The Sahara, I think you'd fork out $7

For data you can get an unlimited plan (includes SMS) for $150/mo.

Did your comment end up on the wrong thread?

It did not. The product is an Iridium transceiver, and a great conversation starter for this topic.

Wow, I worked on the Iridium website back in early 2002 (via an agency, not for Iridium themselves) - the woman who was my contact there was one of the nicest clients I ever had to deal with.

One of the coolest things about Iridium was that they demonstrated it was possible, today, to manufacture satellites in an assembly line fashion at enormous per satellite cost reductions. If orbital launch gets cheaper, which seems very likely, that will become highly relevant, and shows that we can take advantage of cheap access to space, even today.

Sure but at what "potential catastrophe cost"?

When something "goes wrong" with one of these satellites and wipes out the latest CIA satellite etc or wipes out a pay tv satellite....who is liable and to what ends?

The cheaper it is to launch, the easier it is to clean up orbital debris. The risk from debris in orbit isn't from too many satellites, space is pretty damned empty, the risk comes from thousands upon thousands of fragments, some of them created intentionally. Moreover, as it gets cheaper to launch satellites it also becomes more and more possible to add extra weight to them, to put in backup systems which deorbit the satellites if they become inoperable.

300 bytes per second. And you pay per minute of conection time rather than data amount.

In my mind The iridium network is cool, but a bit to outdated for anything other than phone conversations and stuff like remote sensors like Weather buoys.

I am looking at the near future when it comes to "consumer" satelite communication, there is some stuff there.

I remember tracking the flashes these satellites made in the sky. Was quite cool as a teenager to be able to predict a flash of light at a particular time in the night sky.

You still can: http://www.heavens-above.com/IridiumFlares.aspx?lat=0&lng=0&...

(you'll probably need to set your location)

Easier steps if you don't know the exact latitude and longitude of your place:

1) Go to http://www.heavens-above.com/

2) Press "Change your observing location"

3) Choose the city and press "update" at the bottom

4) Press "Iridium Flares"

I work with iridium enabled devices, and their network has some interesting uses :) Seeing the flares is awesome, too.

What kind of interesting uses are you referring to?

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