A SpaceX rocket carrying 10 state-of-the-art communications satellites successfully blasted into low orbit on March 30 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, treating much of California’s coast that morning to views of a single contrail shooting straight toward the heavens.
The satellites belong to Iridium Communications, a company that boasts it is the only one of its kind to offer “truly global voice and data communications coverage.”
Iridium CEO Matt Desch told the Sun on the day of the launch that the successful mission, his company’s first of 2018, marked 50 total satellites the company and SpaceX had launched since 2017.
“We are two-thirds of the way through,” he said.
It was the fifth launch for the company’s satellite replacement project, which replaces units that are more than 20 years old. Each launch—all of which have been carried out by SpaceX at Vandenberg—has carried 10 satellites into space, each weighing roughly 1 ton apiece. Company officials liken the small spacecrafts to Mini Coopers due to their weight and size without their 30-foot solar panels fully extended. Once all is said and done, there will have been eight Iridium NEXT launches, with SpaceX delivering a total of 75 new satellites to orbit.
The constellation as a whole consists of 66 satellites in operation that orbit the earth every 100 minutes, or 14 times a day. The extras not in use are orbital replacements, at the ready in case a member of the constellation ceases operation. Many of the original satellites were launched between 1997 and 1998. “That’s very old in satellite years,” Desch said, explaining that Iridium had slowly been replacing and deorbiting the old models one by one.
Desch said the year’s launches were really the finishing touches on a $3 billion satellite deployment that Iridium will service for the next 20 years.
He told the Sun that the deorbiting process for the satellites carried far less risk than China’s 18,000 pound Tiangong-1, which re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean on April 1.
“That’s a really big station,” Desch said. “That’s really not a concern for our satellites.”
Iridium products and services are used in a variety of industries today, including aviation, land-mobile, maritime, and the U.S. government, Desch explained. He said the replaced satellite network would eventually allow for “100 percent global, real-time” ship and aircraft tracking.
“We’re relied upon by nearly a million customers worldwide to provide critical communications that include safety of life/search and rescue; disaster response; airplane, ship, and container tracking; and even information about how engines are performing on heavy machinery,” Desch said, citing 2017’s hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico as examples of the network’s importance.
“Terrestrial infrastructure was, for the most part, wiped out, making satellite connectivity a vital resource for anyone affected, especially for emergency response efforts,” Desch continued. “To put this into perspective, at one point during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Iridium’s network saw an increase in usage of 3,900 percent in Puerto Rico alone.”
According to Desch, the company also provides the predominant technology that connects commercial cockpits on airplanes. He said the new satellites can track position and altitude of every airliner in the world on a second-by-second basis to air traffic controllers.
“A lot of people don’t realize radar and other things only work in about 30 percent of the planet,” Desch explained. “So when you go out over the ocean or over the North Pole or you’re flying across Africa, no one sees you on radar, and airlines, they keep airplanes very far apart, which causes a lot more fuel to be burned and thus slower trips, but all that’s going to change because our satellites are going to see the whole world.”
Desch mentioned the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the commercial airliner that disappeared over the Indian Ocean in 2014. Investigators have still yet to identify where exactly the plane went down. “That just wouldn’t happen once our new satellites are up,” he said.
This article appears in Apr 5-12, 2018.