Huge order for Iridium spacecraft

by Jonathan Amos,  BBC News

The mobile satellite services provider Iridium has ordered 81 spacecraft to upgrade its global network.

Thales Alenia Space of France will build the satellites – 66 to form the operational constellation, the remainder to act as spares.  The order makes the Iridium Next venture the biggest commercial space project in the world today.

The $2.1bn deal has largely been underwritten by the French export credit guarantee organisation, Coface.  The overall cost of the Iridium Next project is likely to be about $2.9bn, much of which the company expects to finance out of its own cash flow.

“We are very pleased with the completion of our comprehensive vendor selection process,” said Matt Desch, the chief executive officer of Iridium. “We have a great partner in Thales Alenia Space, a world leader in satellite systems, who has developed a sophisticated satellite constellation that will allow us to seamlessly transition to an even more powerful network in the future.”

Reynald Seznec, president and CEO of Thales Alenia Space, added: “We were selected for this contract following a long international competition that started back in 2007. Report

But see also ….

US and Russian communications satellites have collided in space in what is thought to be the biggest incident of its kind to date.

The US commercial Iridium spacecraft hit a defunct Russian satellite at an altitude of about 800km (500 miles) over Siberia on Tuesday, Nasa said. The risk to the International Space Station and a shuttle launch planned for later this month is said to be low.  The impact produced a cloud of debris, which will be tracked into the future.  Since the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, it is  estimated about 6,000 satellites have been put in orbit.

Satellite operators are all too aware that the chances of a collision are increasing. Report

DCL: Perhaps a little CEP to help the guidance and avoidance systems? Any of our vendors working on that?  Lots of events out there in space!