Iridium: ‘the little satellite that couldn’t’

Now the issue is what to do with the existing satellites in orbit. This will involve an additional expense to bring them down in a controlled way so that they burn up in the atmosphere away from populated areas, says Marco Caceres, senior space analyst with the Teal Group consultancy in Fairfax, Va. – the one person who will speak for the record about Iridium. Iridium officials have been exploring the alternative of selling off the crippled satellites, including offers to the U.S. military and even a Middle Eastern group that would use them for distributing Muslim religious messages. Caceres, however, says he doubts these efforts will succeed. U.S. military forces increasingly rely on commercial communications services, as demonstrated in the peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, he notes. The exorbitant operational costs are likely to frighten away other potential buyers.