“Iridium Communications Inc. announced in June 2010 its...

“Iridium Communications Inc. announced in June 2010 its comprehensive plan for funding, building and deploying its next-generation satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT to replace the original Iridium constellation. Specifically, the Company announced the execution of a fixed price contract with Thales Alenia Space for the design and construction of satellites for the Iridium NEXT constellation.

Iridium's fixed price contract with Thales Alenia Space provides for the construction of the originally planned 72 operational satellites and in-orbit spares, plus an additional nine ground spares, which provide greater risk mitigation with respect to the new constellation. As a result of the expanded scope of the project, the total cost of Iridium NEXT, including all costs associated with development, manufacture and launch of the constellation, is now anticipated to be approximately $2.9 billion. In addition, Iridium has entered into an Authorization to Proceed (ATP), which allows Thales Alenia Space to commence work immediately on the development of satellites prior to completion of the financing, with the plan to commence the launch of the first satellites during the first quarter of 2015.”

See this link for above and more information - http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/iridium-next.htm
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Yep! – well whoopdeedoo! – it is now 2017 and the mega company with a mega bill and mega tech-heads has only just just managed to get its first 10 up there, - two years late!

Their cost is an estimated budget $2.9Billion to get their constellation network up and running. Their design lifetime is 10 years and their ‘planned’ lifetime is 15 years. So best case scenario, they replace their fleet every 15 years at another cost of around $2.9 billion. I am sure that within that time (and probably much sooner than later) they will discover that their 800kg satellites will be nothing more than obsolete space junk with a few years! – then where do they go! If they are smart, they’ll put in an offer for SAS before we send them broke!

At an estimated cost of $600,000 for each of our 6kg nano-sats, manufactured and deployed in orbit, our total roll-out cost will be around $120 Million. Our initial constellation of 200 x nano-sats will cost 1/24 that of iridium and if we went total global at 300 x nano-sats, that is still 1/16 the cost of comparable coverage…….. and we have the ability to upgrade while in orbit if need be or put in place the redundancy replacement plan at a fraction of the Iridium”last” satellite replacement cost.

Iridium is a top heavy global mega company with massive overheads and old school technology. SAS is smart, nimble and has the global telecommunications market in its hand. Comparing the two companies can be likened to comparing Kodak Film vs Digital........ and we all know where Kodak is now!