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Rocketlab acquires Iridium

investors.rocketlabcorp.com

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Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#211

Post by glohbalrob »

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.…

You are the equivalent person talking about apartment, app store, or website junk 10-20 years ago. and so, you going to invest or complain?

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#213

Post by ozmaverick72 »

Isn't this a bit weird? Has Rocketlab launched payloads for Iridium ? Is Iridium adding to their constellation or are they just trying to make a few dollars out of their existing satellites by suppling messaging for things like Garmin SPOT etc. Iridium satellites aren't in LEO orbits - can Rocketlab satellites even deploy payloads to those orbits ? Maybe the newer bigger rocket they are working on can but i don't think the current Electron rocket can.

I guess it only has to make sense to Wallstreet types ....

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#214

Post by NetMageSCW »

preg_match wrote: post #185
cptaj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is on a similar scale to complaining about there being too many tennis balls on the surface of the earth. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Low earth orbit is actually not very big. And that’s what we’re talking about here.

LEO is about 2000km to 300km - at 50m shells, that’s about 34,000 times the surface of the Earth.

It is very, very, very big.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#215

Post by NetMageSCW »

tonic_note wrote: post #74
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.…

Satellite broadband stonks in shambles after the inevitable Kessler syndrome

Gravity was not a documentary.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#216

Post by NetMageSCW »

lxgr wrote: post #91
NetMageSCW wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A profitable satellite company with a lot of debt and satellites that target the previous model of bespoke terminals when the market is moving to satellite service on regular phones.

Iridium is launching 5G standards-based direct-to-device capabilities this year: https://www.iridium.com/services/iridium-ntn-direct

Only for companies that choose to make or support phones with Iridium connectivity included, as opposed to AST and Starlink targeting existing phones.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#217

Post by NetMageSCW »

amluto wrote: post #143
lxgr wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't circumvent phone antennas being largely omnidirectional (unlike VSAT or phased arrays, which are highly directional) and as a result having much lower gain, they just work with it, just like Iridium, Globalstar, Inmarsat, Thuraya, and all the other early players in what's now called "direct to device". The market is as bimodal as ever on the device side: On one side, you have small, battery-powered, (most…

I suspect that the lack of ability to form nulls in the beam is as big or even a bigger limitation than the reduction in gain when going from a big array to a phone. The SNR in Shannon’s Law has a log in front of it, but spectrum reuse is more or less linear. If there are five visible satellites and I can null out four of them, then I can receive from and transmit to the fifth without substantial interference. (I’m n…

Dense areas get terrestrial towers as the do now. Non-dense areas fall back to satellite towers with no change in devices needed.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#218

Post by NetMageSCW »

denotes wrote: post #55
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?

Sailors may be a small and dwindling community, but this is our core use case. When you are sailing offshore you need to download weather predictions so that you can chart your course to catch favorable winds. My experience with Iridium is that you open a targeted set of ports for the modem to feed your phone via, and then you don't have to think about it again. 100+ nautical miles offshore and it just works.

T-Mobile has weather available off-grid now on existing phones?

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#219

Post by b112 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #186
harrall wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% agree but Starlink is the only profitable space division of SpaceX. The truth is diverting money to space exploration is not that popular. We only got the moon because we were in a battle with the Soviet Union about capitalism vs. communism. It was never about space or science. The instant the Soviet Union collapsed, we reduced NASA’s projects and budgets. So while I’m not a fan of the circumstances, I need so…

> The instant the Soviet Union collapsed, we reduced NASA’s projects and budgets. The instant we beat the Soviet Union to the moon we reduced NASA's projects and budgets. That's why the Space Shuttle was such a ridiculous kludge.

Yes, and you're 100% right, but context is needed here for others even if you know this next bit.

The original shuttle designs were much, much better. I remember reading tech specs and looking at schematics in Discover and Popular Science years before the final design. Maybe Omni too.

Then it ended up in committee, politicians got involved, and funding was cut in parallel (even before the wall came down, it was clear the Soviets were done). The design was a shadow of what it could have been.

I remeber being sad as a kid.

Also, my drive down nastologia avenue made me realise, I really miss science magazines. The publishing date of the three I mentioned seemed to be staggered a bit. So I always had a bit of science news, and I really miss the format.

Phones aren't the same, tiny, tablets are unwieldy and smaller than a magazine, they were distraction free, and I really liked it just being all in one package.

I even liked the ads! Typically for some computer peripheral, or a new calculator, or some scientific apparatus. The ad just sat there too, it didn't bounce around or scream at you or cover an article's text.

Or the worst modern scourge, popups while you're reading, I mean !'?"#+#-#/ off I'm reading here!

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#220

Post by NetMageSCW »

snarf21 wrote: post #152
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?

There is a huge market for people to connection while doing outdoor activities, including downloading maps, sharing current location, etc. It isn't just people who live in BFE looking for a downlink.

And that market is being covered by Starlink and AST SpaceMobile without requiring special equipment.
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