[107880] in Cypherpunks
Oops.. five more iridium birds gone
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Schear)
Wed Jan 27 12:30:39 1999
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:15:18 -0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Steve Schear <schear@lvcm.com>
Reply-To: Steve Schear <schear@lvcm.com>
FIVE MORE IRIDIUMS GONE
Iridium LLC indicated in its fourth quarter and year-end financial
reports for the period ending 31 December it had lost five more of its
satellites. Consortium leader Motorola so far refused to comment.
Iridium didn't directly state that five more satellites were lost, but
from the number of launched satellites (86) and the figure given by
Iridium of 8 functional in-orbit spares it can easily be calculated that so
far 12 Iridium satellites have failed. The constellation consists of 66
LEO satellites, so the equation looks like this: 66 operational + 8
functioning spares + x defunct = 86 launched. It's quite obvious that x =
12 and not 7, as so far admitted. This would also mean a total failure
rate of 14 percent, or one in seven satellites.
Another implication is that Iridium is at least three spares short, as
the system should consist of six satellites in eleven orbital planes, plus
one spare in each plane (resulting in a total of 77 operational satellites.
The problem might be even a bit more serious as it is not known whether
the failures are evenly spread over the planes or whether certain planes
are more affected than others. There's so far no official statement by
Iridium. Consortium leader Motorola let it be known they wouldn't comment
about individual satellites. [They must've learned that from a certain
satellite operator in Luxembourg.]
Down on Earth, Iridium is troubled by more problems. The consortium had
expected 200,000 customers by the end of 1998 but reportedly so far has
just 3,000--certainly not just because of a five-week delay in the roll-
out of its service last year. In addition to problems with unavailable
consumer equipment, Iridium's performance figures seem everything but
convincing: the company reported a rate of dropped calls of six percent,
even though 3,000 customers possibly cannot put the system under full
stress.
Copyright 1999 Peter C. Klanowski, pck@sat-nd.com. All rights reserved.
Peter C Klanowski shall not be liable for errors or delays in the content,
or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
