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Rocketlab acquires Iridium

investors.rocketlabcorp.com

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Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#101

Post by throw-the-towel »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #73
proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

On the positive side, clearing out all this space junk could end up being a meaningful contributor to global GDP. See also Planetes [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

I wish clearing out all the CO2 from the atmosphere became a meaningful contributor to global GNP.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#102

Post by lxgr »

Scoundreller wrote: post #96
hobonation wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iridium terminals can be very power-efficient. Consumer ones are the size of a deck of cards and can last for days.

I wonder how much of the power-efficiency is due to being much slower. Don’t need to blast and beam-steer if you can deal with poor SNR by taking your time to differentiate the 0s and 1s? Which is more power efficient per megabyte? (But I get it: sometimes a few bits is all you need)

All of it. You can't really get around physics.

Iridium has historically targeted low-power, omnidirectional terminals (antennas can be larger at lower frequencies without requiring steering than at higher frequencies).

They recently had some forays into steered, high-bandwidth antennas with their Certus line and their second-generation satellites that now allow native packet switching (the first gen was circuit-switched at 2.4 kbps only), but that brings you into the bandwidth-limited regime, and is honestly just a waste of scarce L-band spectrum and much better served by all the Ku- and Ka-band LEO competitors.

It's going to be interesting to see if Rocketlab start also serving that market, like some of their main competitors already are.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#103

Post by lxgr »

ryandvm wrote: post #49

I dunno. I would be surprised if a 30 year old telecommunications network is going to be technically competitive with a SpaceX's LEO network that is still launching satellites as we speak. How much market is there for people that just want low speed connectivity from the middle of nowhere?

> How much market is there for people that just want low speed connectivity from the middle of nowhere?

Militaries generally find this capability pretty relevant, among others, and they have deep pockets. They were the ones to bail out Iridium the first time around, after all.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#104

Post by birdsongs »

ralfd wrote: post #76
TheJoeMan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At present, I don't believe there are industry standards / codes mandating minimization of reflectivity. My understanding is that SpaceX has engineered for this from their own internal requirements and "goodness of their hearts" (which may be related to avoidance of public pushback). As we anticipate a major scale-up of LEO in the future, it follows that "cost pressures" may (mal)incentivize players to skip this conc…

> "goodness of their hearts" (which may be related to avoidance of public pushback) I hate this cynicism in everything. People didnt work there 10 years ago to be millionaires in a far away IPO, they worked there because they are Team Space.

I think the cynicism is warranted when the CEO was instrumental in the downfall of democracy in the US.

Sure, some of the employees are team space. The money is funding a transition to autocracy though, so. I remain skeptical of their motives.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#105

Post by rr808 »

bell-cot wrote: post #75
phildenhoff wrote: post #9

Rocket lab used to be a New Zealand source of pride, having started there. From the press release, now it’s American. What happened?

It sure doesn't help that New Zealand's housing market is one of the most unaffordable in the world.

Compared to LA even NZ looks cheap

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#106

Post by lxgr »

m4rtink wrote: post #69
ryandvm wrote: post #49

I dunno. I would be surprised if a 30 year old telecommunications network is going to be technically competitive with a SpaceX's LEO network that is still launching satellites as we speak. How much market is there for people that just want low speed connectivity from the middle of nowhere?

AFAIK Iridium is part of some important airliner navigation systems and standards - while a niche, it can still be very lucrative business. and I would not be surprised if it was embedded like this into various other systems that are less cost sensitive.

Yep, it's one of only two satellite communications systems certified for both GMDSS/SOLAS and aviation operation and safety (ATC) use cases, and the only global one at that (the other one being Inmarsat/Viasat, which does not work near the poles due to being GEO based).

It took Iridium over a decade to get that certification; availability and political concerns are probably much larger in that segment than for e.g. home or passenger entertainment Internet use.

In the medium and long term, I can see the high-throughput LEO players eat Iridium's lunch for aviation, though; small antenna size (and the lower drag that goes with it) used to be their main advantage over Ku and Ka band offerings, but now most airlines want passenger connectivity anyway, and once you have that, the pressure to just get that certified for safety (with HF as backup, which you need anyway as far as I know) is going to be significant. The case for shipping is probably similar and even stronger.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#108

Post by Centigonal »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #100
Centigonal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hank Green did a video recently advocating for an "orbit value tax" -- like a Georgist Land Value Tax, but for orbits. This tax would, among other things, help fund orbital cleanup and internalize the externality of polluting orbital shells. It's an idea that deserves more discourse IMO. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLjW6zuYmos

Ugh. People already trying to find ways to gate keep space by raising the financial barrier to entry before we've even been able to capitalize on cheap space flights. I'm sure SpaceX and others will be against this until suddenly, they're not, when they realize they're one of the few that can even afford to pay it. Like when Amazon finally had warehouses in all fifty states and suddenly quit campaigning against onlin…

One of the arguments Hank makes in the video is that SpaceX is (via starlink) rapidly occupying large portions of useful LEO shells, which crowds out future competitors or users of that orbit (i.e. you can't put more satellites into the orbit without risking collisions, especially satellites that aren't part of the existing constellation), and that the natural consequence of not regulating orbital space in some way would be to lock in the first movers in an orbital shell as the only organizations that have access to that orbit.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#109

Post by Sanzig »

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #100
Centigonal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hank Green did a video recently advocating for an "orbit value tax" -- like a Georgist Land Value Tax, but for orbits. This tax would, among other things, help fund orbital cleanup and internalize the externality of polluting orbital shells. It's an idea that deserves more discourse IMO. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLjW6zuYmos

Ugh. People already trying to find ways to gate keep space by raising the financial barrier to entry before we've even been able to capitalize on cheap space flights. I'm sure SpaceX and others will be against this until suddenly, they're not, when they realize they're one of the few that can even afford to pay it. Like when Amazon finally had warehouses in all fifty states and suddenly quit campaigning against onlin…

I mean, presumably, the tax would apply per-spacecraft with a price adjustment for orbit lifetime and how busy a particular orbit is, so a small constellation of 5-10 short lived microsatellites wouldn't have a huge entry barrier.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#110

Post by Rover222 »

proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

Incredible how the first instinct is just to complain about progress these days. The degrowth mindset is really taking hold.

There is a huge amount of "space" available even in low orbital shells. Which also naturally decay.

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