By Nathesh, TMCnet Contributor
Iridium Communications, the mobile satellite service (MSS) company offering coverage over the entire globe, has stated that they have formalized a complete plan for funding, building and deploying its next-generation satellite constellation, Iridium (News – Alert) NEXT. The company has announced the execution of a fixed price contract with Thales (News – Alert) Alenia Space, a joint company between Thales (67 percent) and Finmeccanica (33 percent), for the design and construction of satellites for the Iridium NEXT constellation. The fixed price contract with Thales Alenia is supposed to help in the construction of the originally planned 72 operational satellites and in-orbit spares and an additional nine ground spare to provide greater risk alleviation with respect to the new constellation. Total cost of Iridium NEXT, including all costs associated with development, manufacture and launch of the constellation has been predicted to be approximately $2.9 billion. Thales Alenia has started to develop the satellite before the completion of financing since the launch of the first satellite has been scheduled during the first quarter of 2010. CEO of Iridium, Matt Desch (News – Alert) has stated that the development of a sophisticated satellite constellation by their partner Thales Alenia Space allowed them to faultlessly transition to an even more powerful network in the future and also Coface’ guarantee enables Iridium to secure attractive and flexible low cost financing for their project. Based on this guarantee, they expect Iridium NEXT to be fully funded when the financing is finalized this summer. This is critical for Iridium to prove their customers and partners that Iridum will keep delivering innovative products and services globally through the coming decades. CEO of Thales Alenia Space, Reynald Seznec added that they are really glad to be the lead supplier in the design and build-out of the Iridium NEXT constellation. Thales Alenia Space satellite design provides Iridium a flexible platform for the delivery of existing and new services. Thales Alenia Space has a large group of world-class technical partners with extensive expertise to support them in this mission. As the prime contractor for Iridium NEXT, Thales Alenia Space has proved to be the undisputed leader of design and manufacture of commercial low-earth orbiting satellite communications systems. In related news, Iridium announced “Test Your Satellite Phone (News – Alert)” week and made progress in Russian market quest.
Nathesh is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Nathesh’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Erin Harrison
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