WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.419 I want you to close your eyes for a second. Imagine 00:00:02.419 --> 00:00:05.339 you're standing in a wide open field. It's pitch 00:00:05.339 --> 00:00:09.300 black. It's the late 1990s, maybe 1998. You're 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:10.939 looking up at the stars, waiting for something 00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:13.240 specific. You aren't looking for a meteor, and 00:00:13.240 --> 00:00:14.500 you aren't looking for a plane. You're waiting 00:00:14.500 --> 00:00:17.559 for a man -made star. And then right on schedule, 00:00:17.660 --> 00:00:21.260 down to the exact second, a point of light erupts 00:00:21.260 --> 00:00:23.219 out of the darkness. It swells in intensity, 00:00:23.420 --> 00:00:25.660 getting brighter and brighter, until for a few 00:00:25.660 --> 00:00:28.460 sleeting seconds, it is blazing like a welding 00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:31.379 torch in the sky. It's brighter than Venus. It's 00:00:31.379 --> 00:00:33.060 actually bright enough to cast a shadow on the 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:35.500 grass around you. And then just as quickly as 00:00:35.500 --> 00:00:38.159 it appeared, it fades back into the void. That 00:00:38.159 --> 00:00:40.359 was a signature event for a whole generation 00:00:40.359 --> 00:00:43.179 of amateur astronomers and sky watchers. You 00:00:43.179 --> 00:00:46.539 were watching an iridium flare. Exactly. It wasn't 00:00:46.539 --> 00:00:49.579 magic and it wasn't a UFO. It was sunlight hitting 00:00:49.579 --> 00:00:52.240 a massive door -sized antenna on a communication 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:55.119 satellite -polished, silver -coated Teflon at 00:00:55.119 --> 00:00:57.500 just the perfect angle to reflect the sun right 00:00:57.500 --> 00:00:59.820 into your eyes. It was a blazing beacon announcing 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:02.020 that humanity had put a new constellation in 00:01:02.020 --> 00:01:05.019 the sky. It is a beautiful, almost poetic image. 00:01:05.239 --> 00:01:07.159 But when you look back at the history of technology, 00:01:07.420 --> 00:01:11.000 it's also deeply ironic because those flares 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:13.099 were coming from a company that, commercially 00:01:13.099 --> 00:01:16.079 speaking, was burning up just as spectacularly 00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:18.340 as those reflections in the night sky. That is 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:20.319 the paradox we are unpacking in this deep dive. 00:01:20.500 --> 00:01:23.159 We're talking about iridium. And depending on 00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:25.500 which business school case study you read, Iridium 00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:27.579 is either the biggest punchline in the history 00:01:27.579 --> 00:01:30.299 of corporate America, a company that incinerated 00:01:30.299 --> 00:01:33.159 billions of dollars and nearly dragged the legendary 00:01:33.159 --> 00:01:36.280 Motorola down with it, or it is one of the most 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:38.480 resilient, essential pieces of infrastructure 00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:40.480 the world has ever built. And the fascinating 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:42.780 thing is that it is somehow both. We are looking 00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:46.239 at a system that cost $5 billion to build, was 00:01:46.239 --> 00:01:48.439 sold for pennies on the dollar, literally less 00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:50.299 than the cost of a mid -budget Hollywood movie. 00:01:51.079 --> 00:01:53.359 And today, if you are crossing the Arctic Ocean 00:01:53.359 --> 00:01:55.879 or tracking a tsunami in the Pacific or fighting 00:01:55.879 --> 00:01:58.239 a war in a remote region, your life probably 00:01:58.239 --> 00:02:00.760 depends on it. And that's what we're going to 00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:03.599 dig into. We have pulled a massive stack of reports, 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:07.019 technical documents, orbital mechanics breakdowns, 00:02:07.019 --> 00:02:09.900 and historical analyses to figure out how this 00:02:09.900 --> 00:02:12.120 thing actually works. We aren't just skimming 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:13.780 the surface here. We are going to look at the 00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:17.439 architecture of the sky. How do you make... 66 00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:19.840 satellites dance around the earth without crashing. 00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:22.219 We will look at the spectacular failure of the 00:02:22.219 --> 00:02:25.000 90s, the infamous brick phone, and how the U 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:27.620 .S. military basically resurrected the whole 00:02:27.620 --> 00:02:29.340 thing from the dead. And we have to talk about 00:02:29.340 --> 00:02:31.699 the collision. The moment two satellites ran 00:02:31.699 --> 00:02:34.860 into each other at 22 ,000 miles per hour, that 00:02:34.860 --> 00:02:37.240 is a pivotal moment in space history that changed 00:02:37.240 --> 00:02:39.800 how we track debris forever. Absolutely. That 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:41.939 is a scene straight out of a disaster movie, 00:02:42.099 --> 00:02:44.319 but it was real physics. So let's start with 00:02:44.319 --> 00:02:46.620 the basics. The mission here was deceptively 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:49.000 simple. Create a phone that works literally everywhere. 00:02:49.159 --> 00:02:50.939 Not just where there are cell towers, but at 00:02:50.939 --> 00:02:52.759 the North Pole, in the middle of the Pacific, 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:56.250 in the Sahara. Right. And to understand why that 00:02:56.250 --> 00:02:58.370 was such a radical idea in the late 80s and early 00:02:58.370 --> 00:03:01.009 90s, you have to understand the geography of 00:03:01.009 --> 00:03:03.590 space. At that time, if you wanted satellite 00:03:03.590 --> 00:03:06.389 communication, you were almost exclusively talking 00:03:06.389 --> 00:03:09.949 about geostationary orbit or GEO. OK, let's unpack 00:03:09.949 --> 00:03:12.849 GEO. This is the high ground, right? The traditional 00:03:12.849 --> 00:03:15.449 parking spot for satellites. It is the parking 00:03:15.449 --> 00:03:19.009 spot. If you launch a satellite. To exactly 35 00:03:19.009 --> 00:03:23.610 ,785 kilometers above the equator, its orbital 00:03:23.610 --> 00:03:26.430 period matches the Earth's rotation exactly 24 00:03:26.430 --> 00:03:29.509 hours. To an observer on the ground, the satellite 00:03:29.509 --> 00:03:32.009 appears to hang motionless in the sky. Ah, so 00:03:32.009 --> 00:03:33.789 that's why my satellite TV dish doesn't need 00:03:33.789 --> 00:03:35.770 to move. That's precisely why. You point your 00:03:35.770 --> 00:03:37.789 dish that one spot, bolt it down, and you never 00:03:37.789 --> 00:03:39.889 have to move it. It's stable. It's predictable. 00:03:40.169 --> 00:03:42.289 But for a phone conversation... That distance 00:03:42.289 --> 00:03:44.409 is a killer. It's a fundamental physics problem. 00:03:44.650 --> 00:03:47.629 They were sending a radio signal up 36 ,000 kilometers 00:03:47.629 --> 00:03:51.129 and back down 36 ,000 kilometers. Even traveling 00:03:51.129 --> 00:03:53.129 at the speed of light, that trip takes time. 00:03:53.229 --> 00:03:55.330 You get a round trip delay latency of about a 00:03:55.330 --> 00:03:56.849 quarter to half a second. Which doesn't sound 00:03:56.849 --> 00:03:59.780 like much on paper. No, but in practice, it destroys 00:03:59.780 --> 00:04:02.159 the cadence of human conversation. You say hello, 00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:04.500 pause, wait. The other person hears it, they 00:04:04.500 --> 00:04:07.199 say hi, pause, wait. You end up constantly talking 00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:09.400 over each other. It's the news anchor delay effect. 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:11.759 Right, where they're awkwardly trying not to 00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:14.500 interrupt the person in the remote feed. Exactly. 00:04:15.060 --> 00:04:17.699 But beyond just the annoyance, there is the power 00:04:17.699 --> 00:04:21.560 issue. To shout a signal across 36 ,000 kilometers, 00:04:21.939 --> 00:04:25.000 your phone needs a massive battery and a significant 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:27.199 antenna. You aren't putting that in your pocket. 00:04:27.379 --> 00:04:28.959 So it's like trying to have a conversation by 00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:31.459 shouting across the Grand Canyon. You need a 00:04:31.459 --> 00:04:33.800 megaphone and you need to yell. That's a perfect 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:36.939 analogy. Whereas a radium solution was to stop 00:04:36.939 --> 00:04:39.399 shouting and just get closer. They decided to 00:04:39.399 --> 00:04:43.019 ignore GEO entirely and go for low Earth orbit 00:04:43.019 --> 00:04:46.680 or LEO. And when we say low, we mean drastically 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:48.800 lower. Oh, it's a completely different regime. 00:04:48.860 --> 00:04:51.879 We are talking about 781 kilometers up. Compare 00:04:51.879 --> 00:04:54.819 that to 36 ,000. It is like the difference between 00:04:54.819 --> 00:04:57.339 looking at a city from a plane versus standing 00:04:57.339 --> 00:04:59.819 on the roof of a skyscraper. So the signal delay 00:04:59.819 --> 00:05:02.860 becomes negligible. It's milliseconds. To the 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:05.439 user, it feels instant. It feels like a landline 00:05:05.439 --> 00:05:08.220 or a cellular call. And because the satellite 00:05:08.220 --> 00:05:11.439 is right overhead, the path loss, the weakening 00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:14.259 of the signal over distance, is much, much lower. 00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:16.420 You can shrink the antenna. You can shrink the 00:05:16.420 --> 00:05:18.459 battery. You can hold the device in your hand. 00:05:18.680 --> 00:05:21.120 But there is no free lunch in physics. I mean, 00:05:21.139 --> 00:05:23.600 there must be a catch. If you are that low, you 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:26.269 can't park the satellite anymore. Gravity works 00:05:26.269 --> 00:05:28.509 differently down there. That is the tradeoff. 00:05:28.589 --> 00:05:30.470 That is the fundamental challenge they had to 00:05:30.470 --> 00:05:34.189 solve. To stay in orbit at 781 kilometers, you 00:05:34.189 --> 00:05:36.389 have to move incredibly fast to counteract gravity. 00:05:36.930 --> 00:05:39.189 Iridium satellites are traveling at roughly 27 00:05:39.189 --> 00:05:42.170 ,000 kilometers per hour. They circle the entire 00:05:42.170 --> 00:05:44.889 planet every 100 minutes. Every 100 minutes. 00:05:44.949 --> 00:05:46.970 So if I'm standing on the ground with my satellite 00:05:46.970 --> 00:05:49.290 phone, the satellite isn't hanging there. It's 00:05:49.290 --> 00:05:51.920 sprinting across the sky. It is zooming. From 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:53.980 the moment it rises above your horizon to the 00:05:53.980 --> 00:05:55.500 moment it sets on the other side, you have a 00:05:55.500 --> 00:05:57.759 window of about seven to nine minutes. That is 00:05:57.759 --> 00:06:00.300 it. Which creates a massive engineering headache. 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:03.620 If I'm on a 20 -minute business call, the satellite 00:06:03.620 --> 00:06:05.879 I started talking to has set below the horizon 00:06:05.879 --> 00:06:08.759 long before I'm done. Precisely. This is the 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:13.160 core problem of LEO. If you use GEO, three satellites 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:16.040 can cover the entire Earth, excluding the poles. 00:06:16.910 --> 00:06:19.410 With Iridium, because they are so low and their 00:06:19.410 --> 00:06:21.550 footprint on the ground is so small, you need 00:06:21.550 --> 00:06:24.829 a swarm. You need a massive constellation to 00:06:24.829 --> 00:06:26.810 ensure that as soon as one satellite leaves your 00:06:26.810 --> 00:06:29.790 view, another one is rising to take the handoff. 00:06:29.970 --> 00:06:32.250 The call needs to be seamlessly handed from one 00:06:32.250 --> 00:06:34.529 satellite to the next like a cell tower handoff 00:06:34.529 --> 00:06:37.850 on the highway, but in space. But much faster 00:06:37.850 --> 00:06:39.970 and much more complex. And this brings us to 00:06:39.970 --> 00:06:42.790 the name Iridium. I love this detail because 00:06:42.790 --> 00:06:44.829 it shows how the engineering informed the branding. 00:06:44.970 --> 00:06:46.730 It does. It's a great little piece of tech history. 00:06:46.870 --> 00:06:49.389 The original orbital calculations done by Motorola 00:06:49.389 --> 00:06:52.509 engineers suggested they needed exactly 77 satellites 00:06:52.509 --> 00:06:55.430 to cover the globe seamlessly. And 77 is the 00:06:55.430 --> 00:06:57.810 atomic number of the element iridium on the periodic 00:06:57.810 --> 00:07:00.949 table. Correct. It was this perfect metaphor, 00:07:01.189 --> 00:07:03.589 electrons orbiting the nucleus of the Earth. 00:07:03.980 --> 00:07:07.899 iridium sounded futuristic premium strong it 00:07:07.899 --> 00:07:09.639 sounded like something you could sell it sounds 00:07:09.639 --> 00:07:12.639 expensive it sounds expensive exactly but then 00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:15.459 the engineers being engineers kept crunching 00:07:15.459 --> 00:07:18.100 the numbers they kept optimizing and they realized 00:07:18.100 --> 00:07:20.779 they could optimize the orbital planes they didn't 00:07:20.779 --> 00:07:25.139 need 77 They could do it with 66 active satellites. 00:07:25.319 --> 00:07:27.839 Which creates a branding problem. The element 00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:31.860 with atomic number 66 is dysprosium. Dysprosium. 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:34.620 Dysprosium communications. It doesn't quite roll 00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:36.240 off the tongue. It sounds like a stomach illness. 00:07:36.579 --> 00:07:39.459 Or a sedative. Ask your doctor about dysprosium. 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:41.899 Right. And the word dysprosium comes from the 00:07:41.899 --> 00:07:44.399 Greek for hard to get at, which, considering 00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:46.329 the bankruptcy that was coming. might have been 00:07:46.329 --> 00:07:49.089 more accurate but marketing won out they stuck 00:07:49.089 --> 00:07:51.370 with the name iridium it was just better so we 00:07:51.370 --> 00:07:54.350 have 66 actus satellites but they aren't just 00:07:54.350 --> 00:07:57.050 randomly buzzing around like bees in a jar this 00:07:57.050 --> 00:08:00.110 is a choreographed dance how is the sky organized 00:08:00.110 --> 00:08:04.889 it is extremely precise Imagine slicing the Earth 00:08:04.889 --> 00:08:07.889 like an orange into six wedges. These are the 00:08:07.889 --> 00:08:10.629 six orbital planes. Each plane passes over the 00:08:10.629 --> 00:08:13.490 north and south poles. In each of those six planes, 00:08:13.629 --> 00:08:16.329 you have 11 active satellites spaced out evenly, 00:08:16.569 --> 00:08:19.189 following each other in a line. So they form 00:08:19.189 --> 00:08:21.410 a kind of cage around the planet. A rotating 00:08:21.410 --> 00:08:23.930 birdcage, yes. As the Earth spins underneath, 00:08:24.149 --> 00:08:27.009 these planes sweep across the surface. This ensures 00:08:27.009 --> 00:08:29.509 that no matter where you are standing, Manhattan, 00:08:29.790 --> 00:08:32.029 Antarctica, or the middle of the Pacific, there 00:08:32.029 --> 00:08:34.690 is always at least one satellite in the sky above 00:08:34.690 --> 00:08:37.250 you. Now having satellites overhead is one thing, 00:08:37.269 --> 00:08:40.269 but connecting a call is another. And this brings 00:08:40.269 --> 00:08:42.830 us to what I think is the secret sauce of Iridium. 00:08:43.039 --> 00:08:45.820 The thing that makes it unique compared to Starlink, 00:08:45.960 --> 00:08:48.399 Global Star, or almost anyone else. Enter satellite 00:08:48.399 --> 00:08:51.340 links, or ISLs. This is the technical marvel 00:08:51.340 --> 00:08:53.480 that defines the system. Most satellite systems 00:08:53.480 --> 00:08:55.700 are what we call bent pipes. Okay, explain the 00:08:55.700 --> 00:08:57.779 bent pipe. What does that mean? In a bent pipe 00:08:57.779 --> 00:09:00.100 system, you stand on the ground and send a signal 00:09:00.100 --> 00:09:02.269 up to the satellite. The satellite acts like 00:09:02.269 --> 00:09:04.490 a mirror in the sky. It just reflects that signal 00:09:04.490 --> 00:09:08.149 back down to a gateway or ground station, a big 00:09:08.149 --> 00:09:10.649 antenna farm connected to the fiber optic internet. 00:09:10.929 --> 00:09:13.610 But for that to work, the satellite has to be 00:09:13.610 --> 00:09:15.870 able to see you and the ground station at the 00:09:15.870 --> 00:09:17.769 same time. Correct. And that is the fundamental 00:09:17.769 --> 00:09:20.529 limitation. If you are in the middle of the Pacific 00:09:20.529 --> 00:09:23.690 Ocean, thousands of miles from land, the satellite 00:09:23.690 --> 00:09:26.610 above you cannot see a ground station in California 00:09:26.610 --> 00:09:29.669 or Japan. It has nowhere to bounce your signal. 00:09:30.700 --> 00:09:32.700 Standard satellites often have gaps in coverage 00:09:32.700 --> 00:09:35.539 over oceans and poles. But Iridium is different. 00:09:35.820 --> 00:09:38.080 Iridium satellites talk to each other. They are 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:40.700 a mesh network in space. It's incredible. Each 00:09:40.700 --> 00:09:43.559 Iridium satellite has four specialized antennas 00:09:43.559 --> 00:09:46.840 called crosslinks. It maintains a constant radio 00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:48.820 link with the satellite immediately in front 00:09:48.820 --> 00:09:50.860 of it in the same plane, the satellite immediately 00:09:50.860 --> 00:09:53.460 behind it, and the two satellites in the adjacent 00:09:53.460 --> 00:09:55.779 lanes to the left and right. So it's constantly 00:09:55.779 --> 00:09:58.659 talking to its four closest neighbors. Constantly. 00:09:58.679 --> 00:10:00.720 So if you are in the middle of the Sahara Desert 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:03.220 and you make a call, your signal goes up to the 00:10:03.220 --> 00:10:05.509 satellite above you. That satellite software 00:10:05.509 --> 00:10:07.529 realizes, hey, I don't see a ground station, 00:10:07.690 --> 00:10:10.330 so it tosses your call to the satellite ahead 00:10:10.330 --> 00:10:13.169 of it. Or sideways to another orbital plane. 00:10:13.309 --> 00:10:15.710 Exactly. It routes the data packet through the 00:10:15.710 --> 00:10:18.149 constellation, hopping from satellite to satellite, 00:10:18.230 --> 00:10:20.330 bouncing across the globe in the vacuum of space. 00:10:20.789 --> 00:10:23.730 It might hop five or six times until it finds 00:10:23.730 --> 00:10:26.070 a satellite that is currently flying over a gateway, 00:10:26.190 --> 00:10:29.909 say, in Arizona or Norway. Only then does the 00:10:29.909 --> 00:10:32.370 signal come down to Earth to connect to the public 00:10:32.370 --> 00:10:35.220 telephone network. That is incredible. It means 00:10:35.220 --> 00:10:37.320 the network is autonomous. It doesn't care about 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:39.519 geography. You don't need ground stations in 00:10:39.519 --> 00:10:42.220 every country. You just need the sky. It allows 00:10:42.220 --> 00:10:45.179 Iridium to be the only provider that truly covers 00:10:45.179 --> 00:10:48.799 100 % of the planet's surface. Even Starlink, 00:10:48.899 --> 00:10:51.080 until they get their laser links fully operational 00:10:51.080 --> 00:10:53.980 and ubiquitous, relies heavily on ground stations. 00:10:54.639 --> 00:10:57.639 Iridium has had this mesh capability since 1998. 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:00.480 I read about a specific quirk in this mesh network, 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:03.240 though. The seam. This sounds like a glitch in 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:05.820 the matrix. Can you explain that? Ugh, the seam. 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:08.960 Yes. It's a fascinating consequence of the polar 00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:11.480 orbit geometry. Remember, all the satellites 00:11:11.480 --> 00:11:13.559 are traveling roughly north -south or south -north. 00:11:13.659 --> 00:11:15.899 Right. They are flying pole to pole. Well, imagine 00:11:15.899 --> 00:11:18.519 looking at the globe. On one side of the Earth, 00:11:18.620 --> 00:11:21.080 let's say over the Americas, the planes are moving 00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:23.519 north. But on the other side of the Earth, over 00:11:23.519 --> 00:11:26.940 Asia, they must be coming back down south. Okay, 00:11:27.019 --> 00:11:29.799 that makes sense. Like lanes on a highway wrapping 00:11:29.799 --> 00:11:32.059 around a ball. A perfect way to put it. So there 00:11:32.059 --> 00:11:34.000 must be a line where the north moving planes 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:37.039 meet the south moving planes. Two lanes of traffic 00:11:37.039 --> 00:11:39.019 moving in opposite directions. And they're moving 00:11:39.019 --> 00:11:42.399 at 27 ,000 kilometers an hour. So the relative 00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:45.340 speed between them is double that. Enormous. 00:11:45.340 --> 00:11:47.620 We are talking about closing speeds of nearly 00:11:47.620 --> 00:11:51.200 54 ,000 kilometers per hour. The Doppler shift, 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:53.679 the change in radio frequency caused by that 00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:56.379 speed, is simply too high for the inner satellite 00:11:56.379 --> 00:11:58.899 links to maintain a lock. So they can't talk 00:11:58.899 --> 00:12:00.740 to each other across that line. The connection 00:12:00.740 --> 00:12:03.620 breaks. Correct. At that seam where the counter 00:12:03.620 --> 00:12:05.580 -rotating planes meet, the satellites cannot 00:12:05.580 --> 00:12:07.679 talk to their neighbors sideways. They can only 00:12:07.679 --> 00:12:09.799 talk forward and backward within their own lane. 00:12:09.980 --> 00:12:12.179 The network software has to know where the seam 00:12:12.179 --> 00:12:14.980 is constantly and route calls around the zipper 00:12:14.980 --> 00:12:17.820 rather than across it. It is mind -blowing to 00:12:17.820 --> 00:12:20.179 think about the software logic required to route 00:12:20.179 --> 00:12:23.080 a phone call through a shifting spinning grid 00:12:23.080 --> 00:12:27.039 of 66 flying towers with a blind spot that moves 00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:29.659 across the planet. It was a technological moonshot. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:32.639 A true marvel of engineering. And that's really 00:12:32.639 --> 00:12:34.740 where the Motorola story begins. This wasn't 00:12:34.740 --> 00:12:37.700 a startup in a garage. This was Motorola at the 00:12:37.700 --> 00:12:40.120 absolute height of its power. Right. This is 00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:43.840 the late 80s, early 90s. Motorola is mobile communications. 00:12:44.120 --> 00:12:47.179 They invented the cell phone. They are titans. 00:12:47.259 --> 00:12:50.039 They were the undisputed kings. And the story 00:12:50.039 --> 00:12:53.080 goes that this whole idea started because a Motorola 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:56.100 executive's wife, Karen Berdiger, was complaining 00:12:56.100 --> 00:12:58.220 that her cell phone didn't work during a vacation 00:12:58.220 --> 00:13:00.620 in the Bahamas. The classic necessity is the 00:13:00.620 --> 00:13:03.139 mother of invention. But the necessity was a 00:13:03.139 --> 00:13:05.179 wealthy tourist wanting to make a call from the 00:13:05.179 --> 00:13:08.159 beach. That is the legend. Her husband, Barry 00:13:08.159 --> 00:13:10.279 Burdiger, along with Raymond Leopold and Ken 00:13:10.279 --> 00:13:12.820 Peterson, took that complaint and turned it into 00:13:12.820 --> 00:13:15.200 a whiteboard sketch. But because it was Motorola, 00:13:15.460 --> 00:13:17.539 they approached it with a manufacturing mindset 00:13:17.539 --> 00:13:19.940 that the space industry had never seen before. 00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:22.039 What do you mean by that, a manufacturing mindset? 00:13:22.669 --> 00:13:25.690 Well, you have to realize, before Iridium, satellites 00:13:25.690 --> 00:13:28.809 were handcrafted artisanal objects. They were 00:13:28.809 --> 00:13:31.870 like Ferraris or bespoke suits. You built one 00:13:31.870 --> 00:13:34.830 every year or two in a clean room with a team 00:13:34.830 --> 00:13:37.750 of 50 PhDs. Right, they were one -offs. One -offs. 00:13:37.990 --> 00:13:40.169 Incredibly expensive, incredibly slow to build. 00:13:40.490 --> 00:13:44.549 And Motorola needed 66 -plus spares. They couldn't 00:13:44.549 --> 00:13:46.029 build them like Ferraris. They needed to build 00:13:46.029 --> 00:13:48.029 them like toasters. They needed an assembly line. 00:13:48.230 --> 00:13:50.649 And I found this detail fascinating. They hired 00:13:50.649 --> 00:13:54.000 an engineer from Apple. Why? They hired a guy 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:56.539 who had worked on the Macintosh automated factory. 00:13:56.980 --> 00:13:59.220 They needed someone who knew mass production. 00:13:59.460 --> 00:14:02.139 They set up a literal production line. They standardized 00:14:02.139 --> 00:14:04.580 the chassis. At the peak of production, they 00:14:04.580 --> 00:14:06.899 were spitting out a fully functional communication 00:14:06.899 --> 00:14:10.879 satellite every 4 .3 days. Every four days. That 00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:13.600 is unprecedented speed, even by today's standards. 00:14:13.940 --> 00:14:16.120 It was the Ford Model T moment for satellites. 00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:18.679 And the launch campaign was just as aggressive. 00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:21.179 They couldn't rely on just one rocket provider. 00:14:21.379 --> 00:14:23.440 They booked everything. could fly. They were 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:26.419 launching on American Delta 2 rockets. They were 00:14:26.419 --> 00:14:28.659 launching on Russian Proton rockets. They were 00:14:28.659 --> 00:14:31.440 launching on Chinese Long March rockets. It was 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:33.879 a logistical delay. Imagine the coordination. 00:14:34.440 --> 00:14:37.480 You are shipping sensitive U .S. technology to 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:40.519 Kazakhstan and Taiwan, managing export controls, 00:14:40.759 --> 00:14:44.659 managing launch windows. They launched 72 satellites 00:14:44.659 --> 00:14:47.720 in just over 12 months. It remains one of the 00:14:47.720 --> 00:14:50.100 greatest feats of logistics in aerospace history. 00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:52.440 And it worked. Technically, it worked out. They 00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:55.360 got the birds up there. On November 1st, 1998, 00:14:55.720 --> 00:14:58.259 the service launches. The Vice President of the 00:14:58.259 --> 00:15:01.039 United States, Al Gore, makes the first ceremonial 00:15:01.039 --> 00:15:04.299 call. He calls Gilbert Groszner the great -grandson 00:15:04.299 --> 00:15:06.600 of Alexander Graham Bell. The symbolism is heavy. 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:08.639 The torch is passed from the inventor of the 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:10.600 telephone to the future of the telephone. And 00:15:10.600 --> 00:15:15.200 then crickets. Just silence. Nobody bought it. 00:15:15.299 --> 00:15:17.720 The silence was deafening. The phones just sat 00:15:17.720 --> 00:15:20.259 on the shelves. What went wrong? They had the 00:15:20.259 --> 00:15:22.860 tech. They had the coverage. Why did the business 00:15:22.860 --> 00:15:26.340 crash so hard? It was a perfect storm of bad 00:15:26.340 --> 00:15:29.500 timing, bad economics, and arguably arrogance. 00:15:30.559 --> 00:15:34.179 First, the cost. The handset, the famous brick, 00:15:34.440 --> 00:15:39.700 cost $3 ,000. $3 ,000 in 1998 money. That's like 00:15:39.700 --> 00:15:43.440 $6 ,000 or $7 ,000 today. At least. And the calls. 00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:47.769 Up to $7 a minute. Ouch. So a 10 -minute check 00:15:47.769 --> 00:15:50.509 -in is $70. Who is this for? That was the problem. 00:15:50.590 --> 00:15:51.970 They thought it was for globe -trotting executives. 00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:54.360 But the bigger problem wasn't just the price, 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:57.179 it was the competition. While Motorola was spending 00:15:57.179 --> 00:16:00.100 11 years and $5 billion building this space network, 00:16:00.379 --> 00:16:03.539 terrestrial cellular networks, GSM towers on 00:16:03.539 --> 00:16:05.480 the ground were exploding. They were getting 00:16:05.480 --> 00:16:07.379 cheaper, the coverage was expanding into the 00:16:07.379 --> 00:16:09.399 suburbs, and the phones were getting tiny. A 00:16:09.399 --> 00:16:11.879 Nokia era, the little candy bar phones. Exactly. 00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:14.059 People wanted small phones that fit in a pocket. 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:17.000 The Iridium phone was a literal brick with a 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:19.159 thick antenna you had to rotate. And there was 00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:21.419 a critical physical limitation, line of sight. 00:16:21.799 --> 00:16:24.039 Right. Iridium signals are weak by the time they 00:16:24.039 --> 00:16:25.419 hit the ground. They can't penetrate concrete. 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:27.460 You have to be outside. You have to see the sky. 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:30.659 If you are a CEO in a skyscraper in Manhattan, 00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:34.600 your $3 ,000 Iridium phone is a paperweight. 00:16:34.860 --> 00:16:38.200 If you are in a car without an external antenna 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:40.600 magnet mounted to the roof, it doesn't work. 00:16:40.860 --> 00:16:43.519 So the addressable market wasn't everyone. It 00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:45.899 was just oil rig workers, deep sea fishermen, 00:16:46.080 --> 00:16:49.179 and spies. And there weren't enough of them to 00:16:49.179 --> 00:16:52.179 pay back the loans. Motorola had projected millions 00:16:52.179 --> 00:16:54.759 of subscribers. By the time they filed for bankruptcy, 00:16:54.980 --> 00:16:57.340 they had something like 10 ,000. It was a rounding 00:16:57.340 --> 00:16:59.139 error. And the customer service was apparently 00:16:59.139 --> 00:17:02.019 a disaster. Oh, a total mess. There is a famous 00:17:02.019 --> 00:17:04.900 account by CNN writer David Road. He tried to 00:17:04.900 --> 00:17:07.579 sign up to test the system. He got the runaround, 00:17:07.819 --> 00:17:10.160 a broken website, no sales reps called him back. 00:17:10.339 --> 00:17:12.660 It was a classic engineering company problem. 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:15.059 They built a miracle product but forgot to build 00:17:15.059 --> 00:17:17.569 a sales department. So nine months, that's how 00:17:17.569 --> 00:17:20.349 long it lasted. Nine months after Al Gore made 00:17:20.349 --> 00:17:22.829 that call, Iridium filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 00:17:23.190 --> 00:17:25.349 It was one of the largest bankruptcies in U .S. 00:17:25.349 --> 00:17:28.089 history at the time. We're talking about erasing 00:17:28.089 --> 00:17:31.829 $4 billion in debt. Investors were wiped out. 00:17:32.089 --> 00:17:35.369 Motorola took a massive, massive hit. And it 00:17:35.369 --> 00:17:38.150 got dark. I mean, literally and metaphorically. 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:41.240 Motorola basically said, look, this is costing 00:17:41.240 --> 00:17:43.720 us millions just to keep the lights on. If we 00:17:43.720 --> 00:17:46.119 can't sell it, we are going to destroy it. They 00:17:46.119 --> 00:17:48.369 announced a deorbit plan. They were going to 00:17:48.369 --> 00:17:50.950 command the satellites one by one to lower their 00:17:50.950 --> 00:17:53.150 altitude and burn up in the atmosphere. Imagine 00:17:53.150 --> 00:17:55.990 that. Five billion dollars of cutting edge technology, 00:17:56.369 --> 00:17:59.690 fully functional, working perfectly, about to 00:17:59.690 --> 00:18:01.549 be turned into fireworks because the business 00:18:01.549 --> 00:18:03.390 model didn't work. It would have been the most 00:18:03.390 --> 00:18:06.210 expensive display of pyrotechnics in human history. 00:18:06.309 --> 00:18:09.190 A five billion dollar bonfire. But they didn't 00:18:09.190 --> 00:18:11.710 burn up. Enter the unlikely savior. The Pentagon. 00:18:12.049 --> 00:18:14.410 The ultimate user. The one customer you can't 00:18:14.410 --> 00:18:16.980 ignore. The US Department of Defense looked at 00:18:16.980 --> 00:18:19.119 this system and realized something. They had 00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:21.660 special forces in Afghanistan, ships in the Pacific, 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:24.480 operatives in places where building a cell tower 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:27.200 wasn't an option. And critically, they realized 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:29.680 the value of the mesh. Because the mesh doesn't 00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:33.230 touch the ground. Exactly. If you are a US operative 00:18:33.230 --> 00:18:35.609 in a hostile country, you don't want your phone 00:18:35.609 --> 00:18:38.009 call routing through a local phone switch that 00:18:38.009 --> 00:18:40.569 the hostile government controls. With Iridium, 00:18:40.730 --> 00:18:43.390 the signal goes up and stays in space until it 00:18:43.390 --> 00:18:45.970 hits a secure gateway in Hawaii or Virginia. 00:18:46.190 --> 00:18:49.970 It bypasses local infrastructure. That is incredibly 00:18:49.970 --> 00:18:52.730 valuable strategically. So they stepped in. They 00:18:52.730 --> 00:18:54.710 saw a strategic asset about to be destroyed. 00:18:54.990 --> 00:18:57.250 They didn't buy the company outright, but they 00:18:57.250 --> 00:19:00.680 offered a lifeline. A two -year, $72 million 00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:04.960 contract for unlimited airtime for 20 ,000 government 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:07.539 users. It was just enough cash flow to keep the 00:19:07.539 --> 00:19:09.680 lights on. It kept the system alive. And this 00:19:09.680 --> 00:19:12.039 allowed a new group of private investors to swoop 00:19:12.039 --> 00:19:14.059 in. And this has to be the business deal of the 00:19:14.059 --> 00:19:16.900 century. It truly is. Dan Colise, a former airline 00:19:16.900 --> 00:19:18.619 executive, put together a group. They bought 00:19:18.619 --> 00:19:21.500 the entire Iridium constellation, the 66 satellites, 00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:23.960 the spares, the ground stations, the control 00:19:23.960 --> 00:19:26.259 centers, the patents, everything. What do they 00:19:26.259 --> 00:19:33.380 pay for it? $25 million. That is 0 .5 % of the 00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:36.140 construction cost. It's like buying a brand new 00:19:36.140 --> 00:19:38.440 aircraft carrier for the price of a yacht. And 00:19:38.440 --> 00:19:40.720 that completely changed the math. It fixed the 00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:42.720 business model instantly. The reason Iridium 00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:44.859 failed was the debt service. They had to pay 00:19:44.859 --> 00:19:47.140 hundreds of millions in interest payments. The 00:19:47.140 --> 00:19:50.049 new company had zero debt. They didn't need millions 00:19:50.049 --> 00:19:52.309 of subscribers. They just needed enough users 00:19:52.309 --> 00:19:55.089 to pay for electricity and salaries. Suddenly, 00:19:55.309 --> 00:19:57.710 Iridium was a profitable business. So they are 00:19:57.710 --> 00:20:00.069 back from the dead. They are servicing the military. 00:20:00.309 --> 00:20:02.849 They are finding niche markets in maritime and 00:20:02.849 --> 00:20:06.390 aviation. But space is a dangerous place. And 00:20:06.390 --> 00:20:09.430 in 2009, Iridium makes history again in a way 00:20:09.430 --> 00:20:12.099 they really didn't want to. February 10th, 2009. 00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:15.140 This is a date that every orbital mechanics engineer 00:20:15.140 --> 00:20:17.680 knows by heart. Set the scene for us. What happened? 00:20:17.839 --> 00:20:19.900 You have Iridium -33. It's one of the original 00:20:19.900 --> 00:20:22.440 first -generation satellites cruising over Siberia 00:20:22.440 --> 00:20:25.759 at 789 kilometers altitude. It's doing its job, 00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:29.400 routing calls. And crossing its path is Cosmos 00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:33.359 2251. What was Cosmos 2251? It was a defunct 00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:35.960 Russian military communications satellite. It 00:20:35.960 --> 00:20:38.259 had been dead for years, just a 900 -kilogram 00:20:38.259 --> 00:20:40.880 hunk of metal drifting in orbit. No propulsion, 00:20:41.180 --> 00:20:43.940 no control, just garbage, space junk. And they 00:20:43.940 --> 00:20:47.259 occupy the same altitude bands. A LEO is crowded, 00:20:47.339 --> 00:20:50.700 but space is big. Usually things miss each other 00:20:50.700 --> 00:20:52.680 by kilometers. We have close approaches all the 00:20:52.680 --> 00:20:55.140 time. But this time, the probabilities collapsed. 00:20:55.539 --> 00:20:59.180 At 16 .56 UTC, they collided. And when things 00:20:59.180 --> 00:21:01.440 collide in low Earth orbit, it's not like a car 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:03.579 crash. It's not a fender bender. No. The relative 00:21:03.579 --> 00:21:07.240 speed was about 11 ,700 meters per second. That 00:21:07.240 --> 00:21:10.259 is roughly 22 ,000 miles per hour. I can't even 00:21:10.259 --> 00:21:13.019 visualize that speed. At that velocity, solid 00:21:13.019 --> 00:21:15.500 aluminum behaves like a liquid upon impact. The 00:21:15.500 --> 00:21:17.519 energy releases explosive. It's pure kinetic 00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:20.299 energy. Both satellites were instantly pulverized. 00:21:20.420 --> 00:21:22.859 And this created the debris clouds. It created 00:21:22.859 --> 00:21:26.640 a shotgun blast of shrapnel, 2 ,000 pieces of 00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:29.059 large debris stuff big enough to track with radar, 00:21:29.220 --> 00:21:32.339 and tens of thousands of smaller pieces. These 00:21:32.339 --> 00:21:34.759 clouds of debris started spreading out into rings 00:21:34.759 --> 00:21:37.059 around the Earth, threatening other satellites, 00:21:37.299 --> 00:21:39.720 including the International Space Station. It 00:21:39.720 --> 00:21:42.339 was the first time two intact satellites had 00:21:42.339 --> 00:21:44.819 collided in hypervelocity. It was a wake -up 00:21:44.819 --> 00:21:47.079 call for the entire space industry. It was the 00:21:47.079 --> 00:21:49.299 realization of the Kessler syndrome, the fear 00:21:49.299 --> 00:21:51.900 that one collision creates debris, which causes 00:21:51.900 --> 00:21:55.220 more collisions until Olio becomes a wasteland. 00:21:55.380 --> 00:21:58.460 It was a terrifying moment. How did Iridium respond? 00:21:58.700 --> 00:22:00.980 They just lost a node in their mesh. Did the 00:22:00.980 --> 00:22:04.000 calls drop? Briefly, in that region, yes. But 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:05.920 this is where the constellation design shined. 00:22:06.259 --> 00:22:08.599 Remember those spares we mentioned? Motorola 00:22:08.599 --> 00:22:10.480 had launched extra satellites that were just 00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:12.700 parking in orbit, dormant. Waiting for a rainy 00:22:12.700 --> 00:22:15.079 day. Exactly. Iridium engineers on the ground 00:22:15.079 --> 00:22:18.359 commanded a spare, Iridium -91, to fire its thrusters. 00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:20.900 They maneuvered it into the exact slot where 00:22:20.900 --> 00:22:23.640 Iridium -33 used to be. It took a few weeks to 00:22:23.640 --> 00:22:25.400 drift into place, but they patched the hole. 00:22:25.700 --> 00:22:28.359 The network healed itself. That is resilience. 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:31.700 But the clock was ticking. These satellites were 00:22:31.700 --> 00:22:34.599 designed for an eight -year life. By 2010, they 00:22:34.599 --> 00:22:37.400 were pushing 12, 13 years old. They were running 00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:40.500 on borrowed time. Exactly. The batteries were 00:22:40.500 --> 00:22:42.380 degrading. The electronics were aging in the 00:22:42.380 --> 00:22:44.900 harsh radiation environment. They needed a whole 00:22:44.900 --> 00:22:48.119 new fleet. But launching 66 satellites is expensive. 00:22:48.440 --> 00:22:50.559 They didn't have Motorola's deep pockets anymore. 00:22:50.900 --> 00:22:54.130 Enter the next player in our story. SpaceX. This 00:22:54.130 --> 00:22:57.069 is a pivotal moment for both companies. In 2010, 00:22:57.329 --> 00:22:59.930 SpaceX was not the juggernaut it is today. They 00:22:59.930 --> 00:23:02.210 had only flown the Falcon 9 once or twice. They 00:23:02.210 --> 00:23:04.990 were risky. But Iridium needed a cheap ride to 00:23:04.990 --> 00:23:08.009 space, and SpaceX needed a marquee customer to 00:23:08.009 --> 00:23:10.490 prove their reliability. So Iridium took a bet 00:23:10.490 --> 00:23:12.640 on the new kid on the block. Matt Desch, the 00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:15.079 CEO of Iridium, took a massive bet. They signed 00:23:15.079 --> 00:23:17.119 the largest commercial launch deal ever at the 00:23:17.119 --> 00:23:20.720 time, $492 million to launch the new constellation, 00:23:21.140 --> 00:23:23.880 Iridium NXT. And this was a massive campaign. 00:23:24.039 --> 00:23:27.079 Between 2017 and 2019, they launched 75 satellites, 00:23:27.380 --> 00:23:29.460 eight launches. And they had to do something 00:23:29.460 --> 00:23:31.579 incredibly difficult, swap out the old satellites 00:23:31.579 --> 00:23:33.750 for the new ones without dropping a call. It 00:23:33.750 --> 00:23:35.650 has been compared to changing the engine of a 00:23:35.650 --> 00:23:38.049 car while driving down the highway at 70 miles 00:23:38.049 --> 00:23:40.190 per hour. How do you even do that? How do you 00:23:40.190 --> 00:23:42.569 replace a satellite in a working mesh? It's a 00:23:42.569 --> 00:23:45.329 delicate slot swap. You fly the new satellite 00:23:45.329 --> 00:23:46.990 right up next to the old one, sometimes just 00:23:46.990 --> 00:23:49.670 a few kilometers apart. You sync them up. Then 00:23:49.670 --> 00:23:51.930 the ground control sends a command to transfer 00:23:51.930 --> 00:23:55.049 the identity of the node. The new satellite takes 00:23:55.049 --> 00:23:57.509 over the cross links to the neighbors. The old 00:23:57.509 --> 00:24:01.549 satellite is commanded to let go. And then what 00:24:01.549 --> 00:24:04.190 happens to the old one? Then you fire the thrusters 00:24:04.190 --> 00:24:06.690 on the old satellite to lower it into the atmosphere 00:24:06.690 --> 00:24:09.869 to burn up. A controlled deorbit. They did this 00:24:09.869 --> 00:24:13.349 66 times, flawlessly. And these new satellites, 00:24:13.670 --> 00:24:16.630 Iridium, NXT, they weren't just replacements. 00:24:16.670 --> 00:24:18.750 They were upgrades. Huge upgrades. They still 00:24:18.750 --> 00:24:21.430 do voice, obviously. But they added new capabilities 00:24:21.430 --> 00:24:23.630 that transformed the business model. The biggest 00:24:23.630 --> 00:24:26.569 one is a payload called Arion. Unpack Arion for 00:24:26.569 --> 00:24:28.670 us. This is related to planes disappearing, right? 00:24:28.690 --> 00:24:31.869 Precisely. Think about MH370, the Malaysian Airlines 00:24:31.869 --> 00:24:34.390 flight that vanished. The public was shocked 00:24:34.390 --> 00:24:37.750 to learn that we could lose a Boeing 777. We 00:24:37.750 --> 00:24:40.369 all assume that air traffic control watches planes 00:24:40.369 --> 00:24:43.109 like a video game, like dots on a screen. They 00:24:43.109 --> 00:24:46.130 do, but only over land. Ground radar relies on 00:24:46.130 --> 00:24:48.869 line of sight. It only reaches about 200 miles 00:24:48.869 --> 00:24:51.849 offshore. Once a plane is over the mid -Atlantic 00:24:51.849 --> 00:24:53.869 or the Pacific, it disappears from the radar 00:24:53.869 --> 00:24:56.700 screen. The pilots have to radio in their position 00:24:56.700 --> 00:24:59.660 every 15 or 30 minutes. Which seems archaic in 00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:02.539 the 21st century. It is. So Iridium had an idea. 00:25:02.859 --> 00:25:05.859 Every modern commercial plane broadcasts a signal 00:25:05.859 --> 00:25:08.319 called ADS -B. It's an automatic squawk that 00:25:08.319 --> 00:25:10.539 says, here is who I am, here is my altitude, 00:25:10.839 --> 00:25:12.859 here is my speed. And usually ground stations 00:25:12.859 --> 00:25:15.440 pick that up. Right. Iridium said, why don't 00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:17.440 we put a receiver on our satellites and listen 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:20.279 from space? So now, because Iridium covers 100 00:25:20.279 --> 00:25:23.099 % of the globe, there is literally nowhere on 00:25:23.099 --> 00:25:26.259 Earth a plane can hide. Correct. The system provides 00:25:26.259 --> 00:25:28.980 real -time global flight tracking. It updates 00:25:28.980 --> 00:25:31.640 every few seconds, everywhere. It allows air 00:25:31.640 --> 00:25:33.680 traffic controllers to see planes over the poles 00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:36.299 and oceans. This means planes can fly closer 00:25:36.299 --> 00:25:39.500 together safely, saving fuel and time. It is 00:25:39.500 --> 00:25:42.099 a revolution in aviation safety, and it rides 00:25:42.099 --> 00:25:44.380 on the back of the Iridium mesh. And they also 00:25:44.380 --> 00:25:47.029 added CERTUS. Which sounds like a spell from 00:25:47.029 --> 00:25:49.750 Harry Potter, but I gather it is broadband. It 00:25:49.750 --> 00:25:51.890 is L -band broadband. Now, we have to manage 00:25:51.890 --> 00:25:54.609 expectations here. This isn't Starlink or fiber 00:25:54.609 --> 00:25:58.490 optic speed. We are talking speeds up to 704 00:25:58.490 --> 00:26:01.829 kilobits per second. So early DSL speeds. You 00:26:01.829 --> 00:26:04.490 aren't streaming 4K Netflix. No, absolutely not. 00:26:04.650 --> 00:26:06.869 But if you are on a ship in a massive storm. 00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:08.960 You don't care about Netflix. You care about 00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:12.259 reliability. L -band is a low frequency with 00:26:12.259 --> 00:26:15.460 a long wavelength. It is incredibly robust. It 00:26:15.460 --> 00:26:17.900 punches through rain, snow, and hurricane clouds 00:26:17.900 --> 00:26:20.660 much better than the high -frequency Ka or Ku 00:26:20.660 --> 00:26:23.359 bands that Starlink or typical VSAT systems use. 00:26:23.579 --> 00:26:25.660 It's the rugged, all -terrain vehicle of the 00:26:25.660 --> 00:26:27.759 Internet. That's a great analogy. It's not fast, 00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:29.880 but it will get the message through. And there's 00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:33.420 one more secret feature, STL, satellite time 00:26:33.420 --> 00:26:36.089 and location. This is becoming huge. We live 00:26:36.089 --> 00:26:38.210 in a world that is utterly dependent on GPS, 00:26:38.569 --> 00:26:41.470 not just for maps but for time. Financial markets, 00:26:41.730 --> 00:26:44.309 power grids, cell towers, they all sync their 00:26:44.309 --> 00:26:47.309 clocks to GPS. But GPS is vulnerable. The GPS 00:26:47.309 --> 00:26:49.890 signal is incredibly weak by the time it hits 00:26:49.890 --> 00:26:52.369 Earth. It is like seeing a 20 -watt light bulb 00:26:52.369 --> 00:26:56.029 from 12 ,000 miles away. It is easy to jam or 00:26:56.029 --> 00:26:58.930 spoof. Iridium signal is about a thousand times 00:26:58.930 --> 00:27:01.430 stronger than GPS because the satellites are 00:27:01.430 --> 00:27:04.170 closer. They developed a way to use the Iridium 00:27:04.170 --> 00:27:07.410 signal to verify location and time. It is becoming 00:27:07.410 --> 00:27:09.630 a critical backup for national infrastructure. 00:27:09.970 --> 00:27:12.109 It is amazing how this thing that was supposed 00:27:12.109 --> 00:27:15.369 to be a phone for yuppies has become the backbone 00:27:15.369 --> 00:27:18.210 of critical infrastructure. Which brings us to 00:27:18.210 --> 00:27:20.910 who is actually using this today. It's not just 00:27:20.910 --> 00:27:23.509 the military anymore. No, no. The consumer market 00:27:23.509 --> 00:27:25.089 has actually come back around, but not in the 00:27:25.089 --> 00:27:27.269 way Motorola thought. It's not about replacing 00:27:27.269 --> 00:27:29.390 your iPhone. It's about the companion device. 00:27:29.650 --> 00:27:31.509 Right. The gadgets you see at outdoor stores. 00:27:31.609 --> 00:27:34.990 The Garmin inReach. Exactly. I suspect many listeners 00:27:34.990 --> 00:27:37.369 might have one of these. These are small orange 00:27:37.369 --> 00:27:39.369 bricks, much smaller than the original phone, 00:27:39.569 --> 00:27:41.670 that connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth. 00:27:42.009 --> 00:27:44.930 You use an app to send texts via satellite. I 00:27:44.930 --> 00:27:46.650 have a friend who hikes the Pacific Crest Trail. 00:27:46.769 --> 00:27:49.109 Yeah. And she swears by the Zolio. It's that 00:27:49.109 --> 00:27:52.069 peace of mind, the SOS button. That SOS button 00:27:52.069 --> 00:27:54.650 is a direct line to the Iridium constellation. 00:27:55.309 --> 00:27:58.589 If you break your leg in a canyon in Utah, you 00:27:58.589 --> 00:28:01.109 press that button. The signal bounces off a satellite 00:28:01.109 --> 00:28:04.789 780 kilometers up, goes through the mesh, comes 00:28:04.789 --> 00:28:07.109 down to a rescue coordination center, and they 00:28:07.109 --> 00:28:10.329 dispatch a helicopter. It saves lives essentially 00:28:10.329 --> 00:28:13.220 every day. And it's not just hikers. It's changing 00:28:13.220 --> 00:28:15.299 the maritime world, too. For a long time, there 00:28:15.299 --> 00:28:17.599 was a monopoly there, right? Yes, in Marsat. 00:28:17.700 --> 00:28:21.099 They held the monopoly on the GMDSS global maritime 00:28:21.099 --> 00:28:23.799 distress and safety system. This is the international 00:28:23.799 --> 00:28:26.339 law of the sea. If you're a big ship, you must 00:28:26.339 --> 00:28:28.640 have a certified distress system. So if the ship 00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:30.299 is sinking, you push the button and the Coast 00:28:30.299 --> 00:28:32.740 Guard knows. In 2020, the regulations finally 00:28:32.740 --> 00:28:35.180 changed to allow iridium into the club. This 00:28:35.180 --> 00:28:37.920 was a big deal because in Marsat is GEO based. 00:28:38.099 --> 00:28:40.059 It doesn't cover the polar regions well. And 00:28:40.059 --> 00:28:41.779 the polar regions. are getting busier with climate 00:28:41.779 --> 00:28:44.420 change. Exactly. As the ice melts, the Northwest 00:28:44.420 --> 00:28:47.099 Passage is opening up. Research vessels, cargo 00:28:47.099 --> 00:28:49.339 ships, even cruise ships are going further north 00:28:49.339 --> 00:28:52.579 and south. Iridium is often the only GMDSS option 00:28:52.579 --> 00:28:54.819 that works in those high latitudes. And then 00:28:54.819 --> 00:28:56.960 there's the Internet of Things. I didn't realize 00:28:56.960 --> 00:29:00.140 how much stuff talks to Iridium. It is massive. 00:29:00.279 --> 00:29:03.299 They call it SBD short burst data. It's tiny 00:29:03.299 --> 00:29:05.859 packets of information. Think of it like a tweet 00:29:05.859 --> 00:29:08.759 from a machine. Give me an example. Tsunami warning 00:29:08.759 --> 00:29:10.799 buoys. They float in the middle of the Indian 00:29:10.799 --> 00:29:13.019 Ocean. They don't need to stream video. They 00:29:13.019 --> 00:29:15.180 just need to wake up once an hour and say, wave 00:29:15.180 --> 00:29:18.460 height normal. Or, critically, wave height spiking. 00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:21.400 Or tracking a shipping container. Yeah. Or a 00:29:21.400 --> 00:29:24.599 polar bear with a collar. Exactly. Pipeline monitoring 00:29:24.599 --> 00:29:27.359 in the Alaskan tundra, heavy equipment tracking 00:29:27.359 --> 00:29:30.119 in the Amazon. There are millions of these little 00:29:30.119 --> 00:29:32.940 modems out there just chirping small bits of 00:29:32.940 --> 00:29:35.519 data up to the sky. It's a silent, invisible 00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:38.000 pulse of the global economy. It sounds like a 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:40.579 pure success story, but we are living in a complicated 00:29:40.579 --> 00:29:43.859 world and global coverage means global coverage. 00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:47.319 Which brings us to the geopolitics. Iridium works 00:29:47.319 --> 00:29:49.859 in Russia. This is a sensitive topic and it's 00:29:49.859 --> 00:29:52.539 important to be clear. Historically, Iridium 00:29:52.539 --> 00:29:56.319 had a Russian subsidiary. They had to. To operate 00:29:56.319 --> 00:29:58.940 in Russian airspace, you need a license. They 00:29:58.940 --> 00:30:01.880 even had a gateway in Izhevsk. The Russian military 00:30:01.880 --> 00:30:04.740 and National Guard used Iridium because, again, 00:30:04.920 --> 00:30:07.200 it works in Siberia where nothing else does. 00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:11.220 Then comes 2022, the invasion of Ukraine. Right. 00:30:11.420 --> 00:30:14.000 Iridium, being a U .S. company, had to comply 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:15.940 with strict sanctions. They stopped shipping 00:30:15.940 --> 00:30:17.759 equipment to Russia. They cut off the direct 00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:19.759 relationship. But the phones still work. The 00:30:19.759 --> 00:30:21.900 satellites are still flying over Russia. You 00:30:21.900 --> 00:30:24.220 can't turn off the physics of the orbit and you 00:30:24.220 --> 00:30:26.420 can't easily turn off the service for a specific 00:30:26.420 --> 00:30:29.160 region without potentially hurting innocent users 00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:31.920 or emergency services. Plus, there have been 00:30:31.920 --> 00:30:35.000 reports investigative journalism in 2023 suggesting 00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:37.539 that Iridium devices are still finding their 00:30:37.539 --> 00:30:39.720 way to the front lines on the Russian side. The 00:30:39.720 --> 00:30:43.099 gray market. Exactly. A third party buyer in 00:30:43.099 --> 00:30:45.920 a neutral country buys the handsets and ships 00:30:45.920 --> 00:30:48.920 them into Russia. It highlights the double -edged 00:30:48.920 --> 00:30:51.619 sword of this technology. It is neutral. The 00:30:51.619 --> 00:30:53.519 satellite doesn't know if the person holding 00:30:53.519 --> 00:30:56.140 the phone is a Ukrainian defender, a Russian 00:30:56.140 --> 00:30:59.140 aggressor, or a lost hiker. It just processes 00:30:59.140 --> 00:31:01.619 the signal. It connects to that end of privacy 00:31:01.619 --> 00:31:04.039 theme we touched on. You cannot hide from the 00:31:04.039 --> 00:31:07.500 mesh. Speaking of not hiding, let's talk about 00:31:07.500 --> 00:31:09.839 the future. Because recently there was a lot 00:31:09.839 --> 00:31:12.059 of hype about direct -to -device. The idea that 00:31:12.059 --> 00:31:14.900 my regular iPhone or Android could talk to a 00:31:14.900 --> 00:31:17.049 satellite without a separate box. This is the 00:31:17.049 --> 00:31:19.289 Holy Grail, the Star Trek communicator. No extra 00:31:19.289 --> 00:31:21.910 dongles, just your phone. And Iridium tried to 00:31:21.910 --> 00:31:24.430 do this with Qualcomm, the chip giant. They announced 00:31:24.430 --> 00:31:26.490 Snapdragon satellite. It was going to be huge. 00:31:26.589 --> 00:31:29.710 And then it wasn't. The deal fell apart in late 00:31:29.710 --> 00:31:32.730 2023. And the reason is fascinating. It wasn't 00:31:32.730 --> 00:31:34.630 that the tech didn't work. The tech worked fine. 00:31:34.809 --> 00:31:37.069 It was a business disagreement about standards. 00:31:37.470 --> 00:31:40.009 What do you mean by standards? Iridium uses a 00:31:40.009 --> 00:31:42.150 proprietary waveform. It's their own language. 00:31:42.549 --> 00:31:45.250 To talk to Iridium, you need a chip that speaks 00:31:45.250 --> 00:31:48.640 Iridium. The phone manufacturers, the Samsungs 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:50.759 and Jowmys of the world, didn't want to be locked 00:31:50.759 --> 00:31:53.259 into a proprietary solution. They want to use 00:31:53.259 --> 00:31:57.299 the 5G standard. 5G NTN. What is that? Non -terrestrial 00:31:57.299 --> 00:32:00.319 networks. The global body that sets standards 00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:03.480 for cell phones, 3GPP, created a standard for 00:32:03.480 --> 00:32:05.920 how phones should talk to satellites. The phone 00:32:05.920 --> 00:32:07.839 makers want a standard chip that can talk to 00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:10.460 any compatible satellite, not just Iridium's. 00:32:10.539 --> 00:32:12.900 So Qualcomm pulled the plug on the Iridium -specific 00:32:12.900 --> 00:32:15.539 deal. Did that kill Iridium's consumer dreams? 00:32:16.389 --> 00:32:19.769 No, it forced a pivot. And this is Project Stardust. 00:32:19.789 --> 00:32:22.009 Project Stardust. It sounds magical. It is their 00:32:22.009 --> 00:32:23.869 plan to adopt the standard. Instead of forcing 00:32:23.869 --> 00:32:25.950 phones to speak Iridium, Iridium is updating 00:32:25.950 --> 00:32:28.349 its system to speak phone. They are developing 00:32:28.349 --> 00:32:31.470 a service based on NB -IoT narrowband Internet 00:32:31.470 --> 00:32:34.490 of Things that fits the 5G standard. So the idea 00:32:34.490 --> 00:32:36.549 is, in a few years, I could have a regular phone, 00:32:36.670 --> 00:32:38.789 and if I walk out of cell range, it seamlessly 00:32:38.789 --> 00:32:41.109 switches to the Iridium satellite overhead to 00:32:41.109 --> 00:32:43.509 send a text without me buying a special Garmin 00:32:43.509 --> 00:32:46.819 device. That is the vision for 2026. And because 00:32:46.819 --> 00:32:50.079 Iridium has the licensed spectrum, which is gold 00:32:50.079 --> 00:32:52.819 in this industry, and the existing constellation 00:32:52.819 --> 00:32:56.019 already flying, they have a huge head start over 00:32:56.019 --> 00:32:57.660 companies that are just launching satellites 00:32:57.660 --> 00:33:00.000 now. They don't need to launch new satellites. 00:33:00.119 --> 00:33:01.960 They just need to update the software and the 00:33:01.960 --> 00:33:05.039 ground systems. That is a game changer. We are 00:33:05.039 --> 00:33:07.480 rapidly approaching a world where no service 00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:09.720 just isn't a thing anymore. We really are. We 00:33:09.720 --> 00:33:11.859 are closing the last few gaps on the map. So 00:33:11.859 --> 00:33:14.460 as we wrap this up, let's zoom out. We started 00:33:14.460 --> 00:33:16.559 with a flare in the sky in a bankrupt company. 00:33:16.900 --> 00:33:19.480 We ended up with a mesh network that tracks every 00:33:19.480 --> 00:33:22.319 plane, saves hikers, and might soon be inside 00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:24.819 every pocket. What is the big takeaway for you 00:33:24.819 --> 00:33:27.880 here? For me, it is about the density of the 00:33:27.880 --> 00:33:29.460 infrastructure we have built above our heads. 00:33:29.619 --> 00:33:32.059 We often think of space as out there, separate 00:33:32.059 --> 00:33:34.640 from us. But Iridium proved that space is actually 00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:37.480 part of our terrestrial economic layer. It is 00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:39.940 a utility like the power grid or the water main. 00:33:40.039 --> 00:33:42.740 It is invisible. It is always on. And we only 00:33:42.740 --> 00:33:44.839 notice it when it breaks or when we really, really 00:33:44.839 --> 00:33:47.259 need it. It's the ultimate safety net. It is. 00:33:47.500 --> 00:33:49.259 But I want to leave you with a thought about 00:33:49.259 --> 00:33:53.259 that no service concept. Go on. We used to go 00:33:53.259 --> 00:33:56.180 to the mountains or the ocean to escape. To be 00:33:56.180 --> 00:33:59.359 unreachable. With Project Stardust and the integration 00:33:59.359 --> 00:34:02.220 of satellite tech into standard phones, we are 00:34:02.220 --> 00:34:04.440 effectively turning the entire surface of the 00:34:04.440 --> 00:34:07.420 Earth into a single cell tower. There is no off 00:34:07.420 --> 00:34:09.960 the grid. Unless you turn the device off. But 00:34:09.960 --> 00:34:13.670 the potential for connection is everywhere. What 00:34:13.670 --> 00:34:15.949 does it do to the human psyche when solitude 00:34:15.949 --> 00:34:18.590 becomes technically impossible? When you are 00:34:18.590 --> 00:34:20.829 always just a ping away from the office, the 00:34:20.829 --> 00:34:23.489 news, the noise? That is a haunting thought. 00:34:23.710 --> 00:34:26.170 We built the perfect communication machine and 00:34:26.170 --> 00:34:29.090 now we have to live inside it. Indeed. Well, 00:34:29.150 --> 00:34:30.829 on that note, I want to encourage you to do something 00:34:30.829 --> 00:34:33.829 tonight. Go outside. Look up. You won't see an 00:34:33.829 --> 00:34:36.010 iridium flare anymore. The new satellites have 00:34:36.010 --> 00:34:37.750 different antennas that don't reflect the sun 00:34:37.750 --> 00:34:40.150 the same way. The flares are gone. But the satellites 00:34:40.150 --> 00:34:42.190 are still there. They are. Every few minutes. 00:34:42.599 --> 00:34:44.880 One is silently zooming over your head, closing 00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:47.480 a link, listening for a signal, keeping the mesh 00:34:47.480 --> 00:34:50.079 alive. It's quite a show, even if you can't see 00:34:50.079 --> 00:34:52.519 it. It certainly is. Thanks for listening to 00:34:52.519 --> 00:34:54.219 The Deep Dive. We'll see you on the next one.