17 Facts About Iridium constellation

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 constellation system was designed to be accessed by small handheld phones, the size of a cell phone.

The original concept was to have 77 satellites, which is where the name Iridium constellation came from; the element iridium has the atomic number 77, and the satellites evoked the Bohr model image of electrons orbiting around the Earth as its nucleus.

Iridium satellite constellation was conceived in the early 1990s as a way to reach high Earth latitudes with reliable satellite communication services.

Iridium constellation SSC employed a globally diverse fleet of rockets to get their 77 satellites into orbit, including launch vehicles from the United States, Russia, and China.

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Iridium constellation failed to earn revenue sufficient to service the debt associated with building out the constellation and Iridium went bankrupt, one of the largest bankruptcies in US history at the time.

Design was complete by 2010, and Iridium stated that the existing constellation of satellites would remain operational until Iridium NEXT is fully operational, with many satellites expected to remain in service until the 2020s, while the NEXT satellites would have improved bandwidth.

Iridium constellation's cross-links are unique in the satellite telephone industry as other providers do not relay data between satellites; Globalstar and Inmarsat both use a transponder without cross-links.

In 2017, Iridium constellation began launching Iridium constellation NEXT, a second-generation worldwide network of telecommunications satellites, consisting of 66 active satellites, with another nine in-orbit spares and six on-ground spares.

In January 2020, the Iridium constellation was certified for use in the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System .

Iridium constellation NEXT provides data link to other satellites in space, enabling command and control of other space assets regardless of the position of ground stations and gateways.

However, in a February 15 statement, Iridium constellation said that SpaceX pushed back the launch of its second batch of Iridium constellation NEXT satellites from mid-April to mid-June 2017.

Iridium constellation 127 had to be re-designated as Iridium constellation 100 before launch due to a ground software issue.

From 2017, several first-generation Iridium constellation satellites have been deliberately de-orbited after being replaced by operational Iridium constellation NEXT satellites.

Iridium constellation 33 was in active service when the accident took place.

In 1999, Iridium constellation agreed to timeshare a portion of spectrum, allowing radio astronomers to observe hydroxyl emissions; the amount of shared spectrum was recently reduced from 2.

Pre-bankruptcy corporate incarnation of Iridium constellation built eleven gateways, most of which have since been closed.