With this relatively modest capital investment and a contract with Boeing to maintain and operate the system at a cost amounting to about 10% of what the original firm was paying, it should be much easier for the new Iridium LLC to turn a profit.  In fact, instead of requiring a million subscribers to break even, the new Iridium can get into the black with only 60,000.  And the U.S. Department of Defense, which finds satellite telephones very useful in places like Afghanistan, has come through with a two-year, $72 million contract that provides for 20,000 users. 

Iridium's new economics also allow for a price structure that makes using the system much more attractive.  Instead of $7 a minute, subscribers can now call anyplace on earth from anywhere else for $1.50 a minute, which is competitive with worldwide service on some conventional mobile phone systems and cheaper than calling from your room in some hotels!  The links on this page have been brought up to date.  Stay tuned for further developments.

At one minute before midnight Friday, March 17, 2000, Iridium LLC terminated its commercial telecommunications satellite service and began liquidating its assets.  The company had invested $5 billion in its system, whose 88 low earth orbit satellites allowed users with a special mobile phone to make and receive calls from anyplace on earth.  In the end, however, it was only able to attract about 55,000 subscribers and could not even generate enough revenue to pay the interest on its start-up costs.  Although it took 12 years to design and build, the Iridium system provided only 487 days of service before shutting down.  It was one of the most ambitious large-scale commercial uses of space, and it became one of the most spectacular technological failures of recent years.

What went wrong?  Some find it hard to understand; others think Iridium's problems were obvious. 

The New York Times summed up the two views this way in an April 11, 2000, article: "Looking back, no one can make sense of it. Wall Street loved Iridium; there were supposed to be 1.6 million subscribers this year, and 27 million by 2007. Sure, there were bulky handsets, technical glitches and a poor marketing effort, analysts say, but how could they have been this wrong? 

"Easy, others say. 'Everyone in the industry has looked at Iridium as the pioneers of satellite phone service,' said Rikki Lee, editor of Wireless Week. 'And when they couldn't find anyone to pay $3,000 for a phone and $7 a minute for service, it was like -- duh!  There aren't all that many people who track up to the North Pole.'" 

Links:
= highly recommended

Question of the day:  What is the meaning of "Iridium" and why did the company choose that name?   Click here for the answer.

The Iridium LLC corporate site (includes a page through which you can send a text message to an Iridium subscriber, as well as information about the system, the firm, and more).

Lloyd's Satellite Constellations overview of Iridium.  A comprehensive view of the Iridium system with links to almost anything you might want to know about it, including a great deal of technical and nontechnical information.  Still by far the best source of information on the subject.

"The Return of Iridium," by Arik Hesseldahl (Nov. 30, 2001) on Forbes.com.

Information about Iridium service re-sellers, with links and other very useful material.  A great resource for anyone interested in subscribing to Iridium's service, maintained by Gerald Vieth. 

A (premature) Iridium post-mortem, by Joanna Glasner in Wired News, March 18, 2000.

1998 Sky and Telescope article on Iridium flares -- bright reflections of the sun from Iridium's solar panels easily visible to observers on the ground with the unaided eye.

More on Iridium flares (updated January 6, 2002).

Iridium phones for sale ($1,495 new or $1,195 used for a Motorola 9505 model) from Outfitter Satellite, Inc. (accessories include solar panels for recharging your batteries where conventional sources are not available).

Iridium's loss [would have been] radio astronomy's gain.  The system interferes with faint signals from celestial objects, as described in this March 24 Science article.  (Note:  The full text of this article is available only to Science Online subscribers, but a summary is available free to anyone with registration).

The Iridium, a New York jazz club.