Iridium NEXT.

[Александр Ч.]

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  19 минут назад
Harris: Recent contracts inc $55M from exactEarth for AIS on IRDM sats; $45M Army satcom terminals; $38M foundation geoint content mgement.

[Александр Ч.]

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  2 ч.2 часа назад

Iridium: 1st 2 Iridium Next 2d-gen sats to launch in April on Russian/Ukrainian Dnepr rocket. Then 7 10-sat SpaceX Falcon 9s in 2016-2017.

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  2 ч.2 часа назад

IRDM 2d-gen sched, 1st 2-sat launch in April, appears to mean 7 SpaceX Falcon 9 launches, 10 sats each, between Aug 2016 & end 2017.

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  3 ч.3 часа назад

IRDM insurance(2): Lenders OKd no need to insure full 72-sat, 8-launch constellation before 1st launch; only 1st 3 launches. Other 5 later.

[azeast]

И по-русски написали:
Американские спутники Iridium запустят в апреле 2016 года на российско-украинской конверсионной ракете "Днепр" (РС-20 "Сатана" ), полностью группировка будет развернута в 2017 году, сообщили в американской компании Iridium.

РИА Новости http://ria.ru/space/20151029/1310199628.html#ixzz3pyfDf0ce

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/component-issue-delays-iridium-next-launches-by-four-months/

Component Issue Delays Iridium Next Launches by Four Months
by Peter B. de Selding — October 29, 2015

"This is particularly frustrating in that it should have been caught and resolved much earlier in development," Iridium Chief Executive Matthew J. Desch said. "In light of previous program delays, Thales Alenia knows — quite clearly — my disappointment." Credit: Iridium  
 
PARIS — Mobile satellite services provider Iridium Communications on Oct. 29 said the inaugural launch of its second-generation constellation had slipped again and now will not occur before April.
The delay, from December, will automatically push the second launch — of 10 satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — back by four months, to August. Iridium's insurers want the company to test the performance of the first two satellites, to launch on a Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr rocket, for several months before launching the rest of the constellation.
Iridium said it had concluded an agreement with its creditors on a revised insurance regime for the launches — one that will relieve Iridium of a near-term cash expenditure but add the risk of higher-priced insurance if one of the company's early launches were to fail.
Under the latest schedule, the Dnepr launch of two Iridium Next satellites in April will be followed, in August, by the first of seven lridium launches on Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Each Falcon 9 will carry 10 Iridium Next satellites.
McLean, Virginia-based Iridium is counting on SpaceX's being able to conduct launches every two months or so, which would mean all seven would be completed by September 2017.
In a conference call with investors, Iridium Chief Executive Matthew J. Desch made no attempt to hide his exasperation at the latest delay, especially because it was caused by a component that had posed issues for prime contractor Thales Alenia Space previously.
The component, built by ViaSat Inc. of Carlsbad, California, is an extension of a Ka-band transmit/receive module. This hardware already had been associated with production delays on Iridium Next.
"Thales now appears to have found an issue during post-assembly testing of this same T/R module," Desch said. The defect "could create performance problems in the Ka-band downlink to our Earth stations."
Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy will now change the circuitry in the module and then reinstall it onto the first two satellites to launch on Dnepr.
"This is particularly frustrating in that it should have been caught and resolved much earlier in development," Desch said. "In light of previous program delays, Thales Alenia knows — quite clearly — my disappointment."
 
Under the latest schedule, the Dnepr launch of two Iridium Next satellites in April will be followed, in August, by the first of seven lridium launches on SpaceX's Falcon 9. Credit: Iridium

Thales Alenia Space issued a statement Oct. 29 saying the technical issues surrounding the transmit/receive module have been resolved. The company said it was accelerating the Iridium Next production rate to be ready for the follow-on launches after the inaugural flight and to assure that the full 72-satellite constellation is deployed by the end of 2017.
Desch said Iridium's current satellites, all well past their expected retirement dates, remain healthy and that a recent assessment of their status given the new launch schedule has found no reason to doubt that a smooth transition will take place with no disturbance to Iridium's subscribers.
"We monitor and measure network performance on a daily basis through more than 1,000 calls, testing signal strength, call routing, connectivity and duration," Desch said during the conference call.
Under an amended agreement with its lenders, Iridium is no longer obliged to secure insurance for the full constellation before the first launch. Instead, it must assemble coverage for the first three launches — the Dnepr and the first two SpaceX Falcon 9 launches — at least three months before the Dnepr flight.
The insurance will cover the satellites' launch plus their first year in orbit. If one of the first two Falcon 9 rockets fails, Iridium will use the nine spare satellites Thales Alenia Space is already building for a replacement flight, plus a 10th satellite that will be financed by the insurance claim along with a fresh launch.
No later than three months before the third SpaceX flight, Iridium must have purchased coverage for all five remaining launches.
A failure of one or two satellites on each of these launches will not be covered by insurance. But if a third satellite fails, insurers will pay a claim for all three — or more — plus a pro rata share of the launch costs.
Iridium Next has been budgeted at $3 billion, including a $2.3 billion contract with Thales Alenia Space for 81 satellites, of which $1.5 billion had been paid as of Sept. 30. The SpaceX launch contract is budgeted at $453.1 million for seven launches of 10 satellites each, of which $188 million had been paid as of Sept. 30, Iridium said in an Oct. 29 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Iridium has paid SpaceX an additional $3 million to reserve future launches and has secured an extremely low-priced reflight in the event of a Falcon 9 failure.
The Dnepr flight is costing Iridium $51.8 million — $34 million of which has already been paid. In June, Iridium replaced the expired option for two additional Dnepr flights with an option for up to six additional Dnepr launches. Launches will occur from Russia's Yasny spaceport.

[Александр Ч.]

Radio bug to keep new Iridium satellites grounded until April

The first launch for Iridium's next-generation mobile communications fleet has been pushed back four months — from December until April — to resolve a technical problem inside the spacecraft's Ka-band communications payload.

[Новый]

Есть ощущение, что Космотрас окончательно потерял этот контракт.

[Димитър]

Новый пишет:
Есть ощущение, что Космотрас окончательно потерял этот контракт.

Нa spaceflightnow больше старт на Днепре не стоит. В июле Фалкон-9 должен вывести первые 10 спутников, в октябре - следующие 10.

[PIN]

Иридиум "кинул" Еврокот с Рокотом, теперь Космотрас с Днепром кинул Иридиум. Не так сильно, конечно.Но как мог.

[Alex_II]

SOE пишет:
Иридиум "кинул" Еврокот с Рокотом, теперь Космотрас с Днепром кинул Иридиум.

Так лихо кинул, что денег в результате потерял? Бизнесмены, чо...

[PIN]

Alex_II пишет:
что денег в результате потерял

Маража по "бумажным" работам, связанным с подготовкой запуска может быть немалой. А по остальному - околонулевая в нынешних реалиях Космотраса.

[Salo]

http://investor.iridium.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=975723

Jun 14, 2016
First Iridium NEXT Satellites Declared Ready for Shipment and Launch Date Announced

Thales Alenia Space completes satellite assembly and testing at Orbital ATK Facility and prepares them for delivery to launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base

MCLEAN, Va., June 14, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:IRDM) today announced that its first Iridium NEXT satellites have completed assembly and testing, and are now prepared for shipment to the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The shipment of these satellites represents a significant milestone toward the first launch of the Iridium NEXT constellation, which the company officially announced as targeted for September 12, 2016.

"This is a really exciting milestone. After more than seven years of effort, the first of our next-generation satellites are finally ready for space," said Matt Desch, chief executive officer, Iridium. "It has been fantastic to witness our satellites evolve from manufacturing designs to fully functioning vehicles, and we congratulate everyone involved in making this goal possible.  This program replaces the largest commercial satellite constellation in space with state-of-the-art technology and new capabilities, allowing Iridium to support the connectivity needs of today, as well as those yet to be imagined."

Assembly, integration and testing of the satellites are performed by Thales Alenia Space and their subcontractor, Orbital ATK, at the Orbital ATK manufacturing facility in Gilbert, Ariz. The production process incorporates a unique, assembly line system consisting of 18 different work stations ranging from panel integration and payload testing to full satellite integration, solar array installations and alignment checks. Each satellite features more than 5,000 individual parts assembled, culminating in one hundred thousand hours of workmanship by hundreds of engineers. A total of 81 satellites are scheduled to roll off of this assembly line, with 66 serving as the operational satellites to replace the existing Iridium® network, and the remainder serving as ground and on-orbit spares.

Following assembly and integration, the first satellites underwent a series of tests to ensure the vehicles met design specifications, as well as production tests to verify the quality of the manufacturing process. Some of those tests included vibration and acoustic testing, which simulated the movement and sound pressures experienced during the launch, while thermal vacuum tests created the temperature extremes the satellites will face while in orbit. These tests allowed the engineers to confirm that the satellites would withstand the launch and operate successfully when deployed.

"The scale and complexity of the Iridium NEXT constellation is unprecedented in the satellite community outside of Iridium, requiring that the engineers balance delivering high-quality satellites designed for high-rate manufacturing, with a unique fully processed payload while maintaining an efficient schedule," said Bertrand Maureau, executive vice president of telecommunication at Thales Alenia Space. "We're thrilled to ship the first batch of Iridium NEXT satellites, as they represent the culmination of the team consortium work including worldwide partners and all the main Thales Alenia Space entities."

Along with measuring the quality of the satellite production, the testing phases helped validate that the assembly line is fully qualified to move to high-rate production. During the last three months, the number of assembly, integration and testing engineers working on Iridium NEXT has doubled at Orbital ATK's facility. With the vast resources and aerospace engineering talent in the Phoenix area, the team plans on adding another 30 engineers as production increases to complete more than five satellites per month. 

"The Iridium NEXT production process features a unique assembly-line approach inspired by the production of Iridium's initial constellation which launched over 19 years ago," said Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK's Space Systems Group. "While certain stations require more hours of efforts than others, each represents a critical step toward delivering a fully functioning Iridium NEXT satellite. Now that we have standardized the entire process, we are excited to ramp up the production rate to meet Iridium's needs and support the successful completion of a truly transformative program."

The first two completed Iridium NEXT satellites are being shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base for processing by Iridium's launch partner, SpaceX. As the remaining eight first-launch satellites are completed, they will also be shipped two at a time to the launch site.  While the satellites will be ready by August, the earliest launch date available to Iridium from SpaceX and Vandenberg Air Force Base is September 12th.  During processing, Orbital ATK is responsible for fueling the satellites, while also performing software validation and testing to ensure the satellites integrate properly with the SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. The Iridium NEXT satellites represent SpaceX's heaviest payload to date.

All Iridium NEXT satellites are scheduled for launch by late 2017.  Starting in 2018, the Iridium NEXT constellation will enable Aireon's satellite-based system to provide global aircraft surveillance in real time. Iridium and SpaceX have partnered for a series of seven launches, with ten Iridium NEXT satellites deployed at a time. For more information on Iridium NEXT, go to www.iridium.com.

About Iridium Communications Inc.

Iridium is the only mobile voice and data satellite communications network that spans the entire globe. Iridium enables connections between people, organizations and assets to and from anywhere, in real time. Together with its ecosystem of partner

companies, Iridium delivers an innovative and rich portfolio of reliable solutions for markets that require truly global communications. The company has a major development program underway for its next-generation network — Iridium NEXT. Iridium Communications Inc. is headquartered in McLean, Va., U.S.A., and its common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Sel ect Market under the ticker symbol IRDM. For more information about Iridium products, services and partner solutions, visit www.iridium.com.

About Thales Alenia Space

Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Finmeccanica (33%), is a key European player in space telecommunications, navigation, Earth observation, exploration and orbital infrastructures. Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio form the two parent companies' "Space Alliance", which offers a complete range of services and solutions. Because of its unrivaled expertise in dual (civil/military) missions, constellations, flexible payloads, altimetry, meteorology and high-resolution optical and radar instruments, Thales Alenia Space is the natural partner to countries that want to expand their space program. The company posted consolidated revenues of 2.1 billion euros in 2015, and has 7,500 employees in eight countries. www.thalesaleniaspace.com

About Orbital ATK

Orbital ATK is a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies. The company designs, builds and delivers space, defense and aviation systems for customers around the world, both as a prime contractor and merchant supplier. Its main products include launch vehicles and related propulsion systems; missile products, subsystems and defense electronics; precision weapons, armament systems and ammunition; satellites and associated space components and services; and advanced aerospace structures. Headquartered in Dulles, Virginia, Orbital ATK employs approximately 12,000 people in 18 states across the U.S. and in several international locations. For more information, visit www.orbitalatk.com. 

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not purely historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company has based these statements on its current expectations and the information currently available to us. Forward-looking statements in this presentation include statements regarding the development, launch and capabilities of the Iridium NEXT constellation. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the words "anticipates," "may," "can," "believes," "expects," "projects," "intends," "likely," "will," "to be" and other expressions that are predictions or indicate future events, trends or prospects. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Iridium to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, uncertainties regarding development, launch and functionality of Iridium NEXT, potential delays in the Iridium NEXT deployment, and the company's ability to maintain the health, capacity and content of its satellite constellation, as well as general industry and economic conditions, and competitive, legal, governmental and technological factors. Other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements include those factors listed under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("the SEC"  ) on February 25, 2016, as well as other filings Iridium makes with the SEC from time to time. There is no assurance that Iridium's expectations will be realized. If one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if Iridium's underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially fr om those expected, estimated or projected. Iridium's forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release, and Iridium undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements.

[Salo]

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  33 мин.33 минуты назад  
Here are 2 of first IRDM Next sats to launch mid-Sept on SpaceX. White boxes are Harris hosted payload structures.
 
 
  Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  41 мин.41 минуту назад  
Iridium CEO Desch: We've purchased 7 new Falcon 9s, no reusable stages in the mix. We think our Sept launch is next SpaceX launch from VAFB.
 
  Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  3 ч.3 часа назад  
IRDM CEO Desch: Delay of 1st launch to 12 Sept due to crowded VAFB manifest, not to satellite or SpaceX issues.
 
  Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  4 ч.4 часа назад  
Iridium says 1st SpaceX launch of 10 2nd generation sats planned for 12 Sept from VAFB, not July as previously targeted.

[Олег]

А блестеть эти Next так же будут ?
Ведь основное назначение Iridium - пускать " зайчики " 

[Apollo13]

http://spacenews.com/iridiums-spacex-launch-slowed-by-vandenberg-bottleneck/

Iridium's SpaceX launch slowed by Vandenberg bottleneck

by Peter B. de Selding — June 15, 2016




Two of the first 10 Iridium Next second-generation satellites are readied for shipment to California for a Space X launch now scheduled for Sept. 12 at the earliest. Credit: Iridium


GILBERT, Arizona — Mobile satellite services provider Iridium Communications on June 14 said the launch of the first 10 second-generation Iridium Next satellites had slipped by another month, to Sept. 12 at the earliest, because of bottlenecks at the Vandenberg Air Force Base spaceport.
Iridium Chief Executive Matt Desch said the company still expected to launch all 70 Iridium Next satellites, on seven SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, by late 2017.
Addressing a briefing here originally scheduled to mark the shipment of the first two satellites by truck to the launch base – the shipment will now be delayed a couple of weeks – Desch said satellite production and SpaceX readiness both had been ready for an August launch.
"It's a little later than I had hoped, to be honest. But there are a number of non-SpaceX launches planned in August and early September at Vandenberg, so that's the earliest they could give us for this launch," Desch said. "SpaceX is ready, the [satellite] dispenser is ready."
Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX is building the 1,000-kilogram dispenser that will separate the 10 satellites into or bit on release from the rocket.
Each Iridium Next satellite will weigh 860 kilograms at launch, for a total satellite payload mass of 8,600 kilograms, plus the 1,000-kilogram dispenser, which will make it one of heavier missions for SpaceX. The satellites will be deployed into a 780-kilometer-altitude orbit to replace the current constellation, launched in the late 1990s.
Iridium has ordered 81 satellites from Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy. Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia, is responsible for the satellites' final assembly, integration and testing at its facility here, which was built for the Iridium work.
McLean, Virginia-based Iridium had hired Orbital to perform final assembly at a time when the company hoped to include small U.S. military hosted payloads aboard the Iridium constellation as rideshare passengers.
That did not happen, but Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Florida, has designed a distinctive white module for several hosted payloads, including the Iridium-affiliated Aireon's aircraft flight-tracking system. The Harris module, on the Iridium Next satellites' Earth-facing side, will also house a commercial maritime surveillance payload for exactEarth of Canada.
Having a European prime contractor work with a U.S. company handling final assembly required Orbital to create a Foreign Trade Zone here.
Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital's Space Systems Group, said the designation allowed Orbital and Thales Alenia Space to move satellite components between Europe and the United States more easily than would have been the case otherwise.
"It allows the components to come in as foreign components," Culbertson. "In the end, it's all one system but if we needed to send something back for rework this allows us to do that much more simply and with less overhead."
Under U.S. technology transfer rules, often referred to as ITAR regulations, or the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, rules that had specific application to satellite components, a European-built component would be treated as having U.S. origin once it arrived on U.S. territory.
That would mean, for example, that a lot of paperwork would need to be filed to return hardware to Thales Alenia Space, when needed for rework, because it would bear the ITAR stamp.
The ITAR regulations as applied to satellites were substantially relaxed in late 2014. It was not clear whether this relaxation had any noticeable effect on day-to-day working conditions between the Thales and Orbital engineers. Culbertson expressed thanks to local and federal U.S. government authorities for accepting and facilitating "something as complicated as a Foreign Trade Zone [that] could be set up here and keep things moving through the factory in a safe, legal and efficient way."
Bertrand Maureau, vice president for telecommunications at Thales Alenia Space, said his company knew at the outset that complete compliance to ITAR regulations would have to be assured. "This was one of the drivers" of the way Thales Alenia Space and Orbital structured their work relations, he said.
Iridium had originally scheduled the first Iridium Next launch to be two satellites on board a Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr converted missile operated from Russian territory. But the Dnepr vehicle's immediate future is unclear and the company was obliged to start with a 10-satellite SpaceX launch.
Desch said Iridium had received no word on when Dnepr might be available, if ever, for the Iridium launch. He said Iridium would nonetheless launch all 11 spare satellites, with launch vehicles yet to be determined. "The best place for a spare satellite is in orbit, not in storage," Desch said.
Iridium's creditors have insisted that the company secure full insurance for the first two SpaceX launches. Desch said that had been completed.
The creditors and Iridium's insurance underwriters had also asked that the first batch of satellites be tested for three months in orbit before a second batch was launched, to verify their design and performance.
That would mean a second launch no earlier than December, at the earliest. Desch said Iridium's goal of having all Iridium Next satellites in service by the end of 2017 would be a challenge but was still feasible.

9600 кг на орбиту 780 км. Диспенсер производства SpaceX.

[Salo]

http://ria.ru/science/20160615/1448050041.html

Компания Iridium произведет запуск своих спутников не раньше 12 сентября
14:52 15.06.2016
 
МОСКВА, 15 июн — РИА Новости. Американская компания Iridium Communications заявила, что запуск первых десяти телекоммуникационных спутников Iridium Next откладывается и будет произведен не раньше 12 сентября из-за затруднений на военно-воздушной базе Ванденберг в американском штате Калифорния, сообщил портал Spacenews.
Ранее сообщалось, что первые десять спутников Iridium Next будут отправлены на орбиту в июле, следующий запуск состоится в октябре, остальные пять будут проходить с периодичностью в два месяца, а всего запланировано 7 запусков Falcon 9.
 Генеральный директор Iridium Мэттью Дэш пояснил, что компания все еще рассчитывает запустить все 70 спутников нового поколения на семи ракетах Falcon 9 американской компании SpaceX  к концу 2017 года. Первые два спутника уже должны были быть доставлены на базу Ванденберг, однако доставка откладывается на несколько недель.
"Если честно, это немного позже, чем я надеялся. В августе и начале сентября на базе Ванденберг планируется несколько запусков не SpaceX, так что это самая ранняя дата, которую нам смогли выделить для запуска", — заявил Дэш на брифинге.
Ранее сообщалось, что компания на протяжении нескольких месяцев ожидала официального разрешения со стороны России на запуск спутников Iridium Next с пусковой базы "Ясный" позиционного района "Домбаровский" в Оренбургской области, однако ответа так и не поступило и Iridium отказалась от идеи запуска своих спутников на российско-украинской конверсионной ракете "Днепр".

[Salo]

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/07/13/iridium-satellites-rolling-off-assembly-line-in-arizona/

Iridium satellites rolling off assembly line in Arizona             
 July 13, 2016 Stephen Clark
 
The first two fully-complete Iridium Next satellites. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

Construction is complete on the first batch of 81 new satellites to overhaul Iridium's mobile communications network, and the data relay stations will soon head fr om their factory near Phoenix to California's hilly Central Coast for launch in September on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The satellites will be shipped in pairs on a truck to Vandenberg Air Force Base, where they will be fueled and mated with the Falcon 9 launcher for liftoff at 10:33 p.m. PDT on Sept. 11 (0533 GMT; 1:33 a.m. EDT on Sept. 12) fr om Space Launch Complex 4-East.
The flight will mark the third Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg, and the first launch from there of an upgraded "full-thrust" version of the booster with higher-power Merlin engines and super-chilled propellants. SpaceX is finishing up modifications to the launch pad this summer to support the latest Falcon 9 configuration.
Launching 10 at a time, each Iridium satellite weighs about 1,896 pounds (860 kilograms). The satellites, combined with their specially-designed dispenser developed by SpaceX, will among the heaviest payloads ever launched by a Falcon 9 rocket.
Iridium declared the first two of its next-generation mobile communications satellites complete last month, with plans to finish assembly of one more spacecraft per week through late 2017.
"One a week is an amazing achievement of satellite production and something new in the world, and something that people are striving for in the future," said Frank Culbertson, president of the space systems group at Orbital ATK, which oversees final assembly of the Iridium Next spacecraft under an agreement with the satellite prime contractor Thales Alenia Space. "We're breaking new ground and setting a good example."
The Iridium Next program is a $3 billion investment by Iridium, according to Matt Desch, Iridium's chief executive officer. Iridium's purchase of 81 satellites represents approximately $2.2 billion of that cost, Desch said, and the company's launch contract with SpaceX for seven Falcon 9 flights was valued at $492 million when the parties signed it in 2010.
That was the largest commercial launch contract in history until last year's 21-launch order by satellite Internet provider OneWeb with Arianespace.
The first 10 Iridium Next satellites will fly on a Falcon 9 rocket in September, followed by a second launch as soon as December with the next batch. Iridium managers will give the go-ahead for the second launch once the first 10 satellites finish initial in-orbit tests, Desch said.
The other five launches should occur about once every two months next year to fill out the Iridium Next fleet 485 miles (780 kilometers) above Earth. Iridium's contract with SpaceX calls for all the missions to fly on newly-built Falcon 9s, a situation unlikely to change any time soon since insurance arrangements for the initial launches have been finalized.
But Desch said he is open to purchasing reused Falcon 9 boosters in the future "if they're the right price."
 
Seven Falcon 9 rocket flights will loft 10 Iridium Next satellites at a time over the next year-and-a-half. This picture is from a qualification test of a SpaceX-made dispenser to hold the satellites during launch inside the Falcon 9 fairing. Credit: Iridium

"It's going to be a very, very busy 18 months as many, many things have to happen literally hour-by-hour and day-by-day to make that happen, but I'm very confident and increasingly pleased with the progress made," Desch said last month during a media tour of the Iridium Next satellite factory in Gilbert, Arizona.
Iridium hoped to have the first 10 satellites in orbit by July, but Desch said the Air Force-operated range at Vandenberg was unavailable until September. The Air Force said renovations of facilities for the Joint Space Operations Center and the Joint Functional Component Command for Space at Vandenberg will take the West Coast launch site offline through August.
The relocation of range systems from one building to another has kept launches grounded at Vandenberg since March. The move will free up room to consolidate military commanders with personnel charged with tracking thousands of objects in space, the orbital traffic cops who catalog new satellites and space junk to help prevent dangerous collisions.
"There's a big backlog of commercial and government customers they're trying to get off, and they're trying to fit all that in and do the best they can with it," Desch said.
Other launches waiting for the Air Force's Western Range to re-open include a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 flight with the commercial WorldView 4 Earth observatory set for Sept. 15, and an Orbital ATK Minotaur-C rocket launch in October with six Earth-viewing satellites for Google's Terra Bella subsidiary.
"It's a little disappointing," Desch said. "I thought it would happen a couple of weeks earlier, but still we're within the realm of time to get the whole network complete in 2017."
The first two Iridium Next satellites off the assembly line, numbered No. 1 and No. 3, were originally supposed to launch from Russia on a Dnepr rocket, a modified Soviet-era ballistic missile marketed for commercial launches by Kosmotras, a Russian-Ukrainian joint venture.
But with relations soured between those countries, the future of the Dnepr program is in doubt, and the Russian government has reportedly ordered a halt to future Dnepr launches. Iridium shuffled its launch schedule to begin launching the next-generation spacecraft on the Falcon 9, disrupting plans to initially place two pathfinder satellites in orbit for testing.
Desch said he is confident SpaceX will be ready to deploy the first 10 Iridium Next satellites in September. The company has a busy Falcon 9 launch manifest, with missions due at a rate of more than once per month, but the Iridium flight is the next SpaceX launch from Vandenberg.
"We're really on a separate queue out at Vandenberg, so we really are the priority for SpaceX out there, and they'll get us off as soon as Vandenberg lets us go," Desch said.
SpaceX officials said earlier this year that technicians are updating ground facilities at the Vandenberg launch site for the latest version of the Falcon 9, which stands about five feet taller and burns colder propellants.
 
Artist's illustration of an Iridium Next satellite, with key components labeled. Credit: Iridium

Iridium sel ected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the company's 81 Iridium Next satellites. Orbital ATK manages assembly and launch preparations for the spacecraft.
Bertrand Maureau, vice president of telecommunications at Thales Alenia Space, offered figures to quantify the complexity and scale of building so many satellites.
The communications payloads on the 81 satellites required the production of 14,000 transmit-receive modules, devices which link the orbiting platforms with each other via cross-links and feed signals to ground stations, Maureau said.
Developers wrote approximately 500,000 lines of software code for the Iridium Next project, he said.
"This is a real-time, fully-processed payload, which means that every message between all the satellites, the ground, gateways and the users — all satellites of the constellation, one satellite to another — are managed in real time thanks to state-of-the-art hardware and software components," Maureau said.
Each satellite has its own digital switchboard.
The Iridium Next satellites will replace the company's aging space fleet, most of which launched before 2000.
"These satellites have even greater functionality and faster broadband speeds," Desch said.
For example, 3G cellular services will be supported by the Iridium next fleet.
The operational Iridium constellation requires 66 satellites — 11 spacecraft in six orbital planes — for global coverage serving more than 800,000 subscribers.
Enough Iridium Next satellites should be launched by the end of 2017 to fully replace the first-generation fleet, allowing controllers to retire and de-orbit the old spacecraft. Iridium has launch contracts with SpaceX and Kosmotras for 72 satellites, but Desch said the company plans to eventually launch all 81 birds.
The Iridium satellites relay phone calls and messages around the world, bouncing signals from satellite-to-satellite for clients like the U.S. military, maritime and aviation companies, oil and gas operators, and customers in construction, forestry, agriculture and mining.
"Thales Alenia designed a new satellite to our specification consisting of something like 5,000 individual parts that Orbital ATK has assembled and tested, and comprising, over the overall program, something like 100,000 hours of workmanship by hundreds of engineers," Desch said.
Iridium and Orbital ATK showed off the Gilbert, Arizona, factory for Iridium Next to reporters last month.
Nearly 20 satellites were in various stages of assembly on a production floor with multiple stations, wh ere engineers add components like antennas, solar arrays and reaction wheels, then test each spacecraft's resiliency to the wild temperature swings of low Earth orbit.
"What you are seeing ... is a very unique way of making satellites," Desch said. "This isn't the way it is done elsewh ere. In fact, the last time it was done this way was 20 years ago, when Iridium created its first constellation."
It takes between 40 and 50 days to assemble one satellite in the Arizona factory specially built for the Iridium Next program, officials said. At that rate, five satellites should roll off the assembly line every month.
"We are talking about something like an aircraft production line," Maureau said. "It's absolutely unusual to produce such a high number of satellites."
The new satellites benefit two decades of lessons learned since the original fleet deployed in the 1990s, and an Iridium test site a few miles fr om the Orbital ATK satellite plant near Phoenix is already demonstrating the performance of the Iridium Next satellites.
A stand-in spacecraft housed in a high-tech laboratory there is routing thousands of mock phone calls while engineers track its performance.
"This time around, with all that experience we've gained over the last 25 years in this program, we've got a much more powerful satellite, and we are really ready to go right now with some very sophisticated and powerful satellites," Desch said.
A defect inside the satellites' Ka-band transmit-receive modules discovered last year delayed the first Iridium Next launch four months.
The problem caused Iridium to miss its long-projected 2015 launch date for the first new-generation satellites, but the delay allowed engineers to finish software validations, and the spacecraft will now launch with all features verified, officials said.
Iridium officials said the satellites are each designed to last at least 15 years, and with proper sparing, the Iridium Next constellation could last into the mid-2030s.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/iridium-negotiates-payment-delays-with-lenders-contractor-to-mitigate-aireon-shortfall/

Iridium negotiates payment delays with lenders, contractor to mitigate Aireon shortfall
by Peter B. de Selding — July 28, 2016
 
Launch of Iridium's second-generation constellation will start on Sept. 19 aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, a week later than planned, with the second launch automatically pushed to late December. Credit: Iridium  
 
PARIS – Mobile satellite services provider Iridium Communications on July 28 said it had opened negotiations with its lenders and its satellite manufacturer to reduce or delay Iridium payments in the event Iridium's Aireon air traffic surveillance affiliate cannot make its scheduled payment to Iridium.
The company said Aireon may have trouble paying Iridium $200 million in cash between 2016 and 2017, in part because some expected Aireon customers, including the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had not yet committed to the service.
In a conference call with investors, Iridium Chief Executive Matthew J. Desch said he saw no special issue with the FAA, which had already signaled its interest in the Aireon.
"It's more a matter of when, not if," Desch said of an FAA contract with Aireon. "It's how much [airspace] they will survey, and when, and it's looking more like a 2017 event rather than a 2016 event."
First SpaceX launch of Iridium Next slips to Sept. 19
McLean, Virginia-based Iridium said the first launch of its second-generation constellation of satellites, called Iridium Next, had slipped again, this time at the request of launch-service provider SpaceX of Hawthorne, California.
Iridium now expects the launch of the first 10 Iridium Next satellites to occur on Sept. 19 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.
The delay is the latest in a series attributed to the Iridium Next satellites and, more recently, to scheduled maintenance at the launch base and the site's launch manifest.
A week's slip in a launch is not normally an issue for a satellite fleet operator. But for Iridium, it means an automatic delay in the second SpaceX Iridium launch, which for insurance and debt-covenant reasons cannot occur until three months following the first launch. That means a second launch no earlier than late December.
After that, the five remaining SpaceX launches should occur at 60-day intervals, Desch said.
Desch said SpaceX had assured Iridium that the December launch would occur on schedule.
"It's a little hard for me to be patient with these ongoing short delays, but we're getting very close and I'm sure it will all be worth it with a successful launch under our belts," Desch said.
Iridium said in a July 28 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it had lost two first-generation satellites in the three months ending June 30. The company said it had no in-orbit spares in the affected orbital plane but that Iridium customers should see no reduction in service quality.
But the disclosure highlighted why Iridium is sensitive to any issues that would delay the replacement of the first constellation, which is long past its contracted service life.
Iridium looks to delay payments to creditors and satellite builder
Iridium is counting on Aireon payments to help repay Iridium debt and fund operations once the company's large credit facility, backed by France's Coface export-credit agency, is exhausted.
Aireon's payment comes in the form of a one-time, $200 million hosting fee in return for Iridium mounting the Aireon air traffic surveillance payloads on all Iridium Next satellites.
Desch said Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Florida, had delivered the Aireon payloads in June, ahead of schedule. They are now being mounted onto the satellites before shipment to the launch site.
Iridium Chief Financial Officer Thomas J. Fitzpatrick said during the conference call that Iridium is negotiating with Iridium Next prime contractor Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy on delaying a portion of the milestone payments until beyond 2017. Fitzpatrick also noted that $150 million in milestone payments for Thales Alenia Space have also shifted from 2016 into 2017.
Iridium is in parallel negotiating with its lenders on delaying or reducing payments into a debt-service account, which under the loan covenants must be maintained at a certain level.
The third source of funding to cover the Aireon shortfall would be to skip quarterly dividend payments to owners of Iridium's preferred stock.
Fitzpatrick said these measures could mean Iridium reaches its highest debt-to-gross profit level in 2017 rather than in 2016, but that the company would still remain well under the covenants' debt ceilings.
Big growth in U.S. military revenue and subscriber count
Iridium reaffirmed its forecasted revenue and gross profit margin for 2016.
For the three months ending June 30, Iridium reported $109.2 million in revenue, 76 percent of it being service revenue. Service revenue was up 7 percent over the same period a year ago.
The company said it had 823,000 subscribers as of June 30, up 4 percent from March 31 and 7 percent from a year ago. The company's government business grew both in revenue and subscriber count. Fitzpatrick said the revenue growth from the company's U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) business had been foreseen in the contract and would not repeat.
Under the contract, the U.S. Defense Department can use all the Iridium service it wants. As the government adds more customers, there is no automatic increase to Iridium's service revenue line, but because these new customers are purchasing Iridium handsets, the company's hardware revenue increases.

[uncle_jew]

Олег пишет:
А блестеть эти Next так же будут ?
Ведь основное назначение Iridium - пускать " зайчики "

Увы, блестеть они не будут.

http://www.universetoday.com/120761/iridium-next-set-to-begin-deployment-this-year/

[Salo]

Iridium Corporate Подлинная учетная запись ‏@IridiumComm  
It's a big day for Iridium as the first 2 Iridium NEXT satellites have successfully arrived at Vandenberg AFB!
 
  8:10 - 2 авг. 2016 г.  

[Salo]

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  
2 IRDM Next sats leave Orbital ATK/Ariz plant for VAFB/SpaceX Sept launch. Truck does load-deliver-return trips.
   
  7:14 - 3 авг. 2016 г.