Iridium Communications Inc.

The Iridium communications service was launched on November 1, 1998, formerly known as Iridium SSC. The first Iridium call was made from Vice President of the United States Al Gore to Gilbert M. Grosvenor, the great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell and chairman of the National Geographic Society. Motorola provided the technology and major financial backing. The logo of the company represents the Big Dipper. The company derives its name from the chemical element iridium, which has an atomic number of 77, equaling the initial number of satellites which were calculated to be required for global coverage. However, due to optimizations of orbit trajectories, technology updates and real-world conditions, only 66 are required for global coverage. A total of 95 first-generation satellites were launched.

On August 13, 1999, nine months after the launch of the organization, the founding company went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 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 handheld devices, when compared to terrestrial cellular mobile phones, were bulkier and more expensive, both of which discouraged adoption among potential users.

Mismanagement is another major factor that was 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. Other schemes ( Orbcomm, ICO Global Communications, and Globalstar ) followed Iridium into bankruptcy protection, while a number of other proposed schemes were never even constructed.

In August 2000, Motorola announced that the Iridium satellites would have to be deorbited. Despite this, they remained in orbit and operational. In December 2000, the US government stepped in to save Iridium by providing US$72 million in exchange for a two-year contract. They also approved 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, the Iridium 33 satellite collided with a defunct Russian satellite, named Kosmos 2251, 800 kilometres (500 mi) over Siberia. 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 rockets in a series of 8 launches. The campaign also consisted of upgrades to Iridium ground infrastructure.

The Iridium NEXT 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 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 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). The total expenditures of approximately $2.9 billion were partially financed with debt: between 2010 and 2017, the debt of Iridium Communications Inc. grew from $37.4 millions to $1,455.6 millions.

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 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 two years after the first launch.

The Iridium NEXT network initially consisted of 66 operational satellites and nine in-orbit spares. Five additional ground spare satellites were launched on May 20, 2023, increasing the deployed constellation to 80 satellites, including 14 in-orbit spares.