A space-faring real-life thriller shows that that global communication isn't the goldmine it seems – and the best technology doesn't always succeed

Iridium satellites wiped out blind spots, but struggled to tempt users Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

VISIONS of the future omit the messiness of real life. Every solution is total; every technology works equally well for everybody. And when it all goes wrong, journalists like John Bloom are left to pick through the wreckage.

Now and again, though, the story ultimately gets a happy ending. Such is the tale of the satellite system Iridium, making Bloom’s Eccentric Orbits an inspiring history as well as an effective business thriller.

In 1945, Arthur C. Clarke wrote an article that foresaw the advent of communication satellites. He described three extraterrestrial relays – crewed space stations positioned at equal distances from each other over the equator at an altitude of 36,000 kilometres. They would orbit in sync with Earth’s rotation and their signals would reach almost everyone on the planet.

Fifty years later, by satellite link from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka, Clarke opened a small celebratory exhibition at London’s Science Museum. His prediction had come true, although the spacecraft were a lot smaller than he anticipated, thanks to miniaturisation and the lack of crews (the components were so reliable that they did not need servicing).

There was one snag, though: signals from geostationary satellites are too weak to reach high latitudes effectively. This problem is what the Iridium satellite service, conceived in the early 1990s, was supposed to tackle. By launching scores of extra satellites into lower orbits, the Iridium network would achieve truly global coverage. Anyone with an Iridium phone would be within sight of a satellite, and those satellites would communicate with each other, enabling everyone on Earth to talk to everyone else.

Calculations showed that 77 satellites would be needed, hence the name “Iridium” – after the metal with atomic number 77. It turned out that just 66 were required, but dysprosium (element number 66) didn’t seem right as a name.

The satellites were launched in a matter of months and in 1998, US Vice President Al Gore made the first Iridium phone call. Everything augured well for a revolution in the satellite communications market, only it didn’t happen. People didn’t buy the phones; they were far too expensive. Demand was insufficient to recoup the billions of dollars that had been invested in Iridium, which became the biggest bankruptcy in US history. And this is why, at the beginning of Eccentric Orbits, we encounter Danny Stamp wrestling with what his employer – the mighty Motorola Corporation, owner of Iridium – had told him to do: destroy them.

“Explorers and media correspondents loved the system, but so, crucially, did the world’s military“

The man who ultimately saved Iridium was Stamp’s boss Dan Colussy, a retired aerospace executive. Colussy never doubted the technology behind Iridium, and realised that its business plan was letting it down. Iridium was being marketed as a global telecoms solution, when it would only ever appeal to people in places where no other satellite phone would work.

Such users were plentiful: the trick was to identify them. Explorers and reporters loved the system, naturally, but so, crucially, did the world’s military, operating in places not covered by the International Maritime Organization’s geosynchronous Inmarsat satellites. This niche market was wealthy enough to justify Iridium’s continuation.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy urged Americans to send humans to the moon and “do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”. Bloom argues convincingly that creating and then saving Iridium was one such desperately difficult – and brilliant – achievement.

Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium story John Bloom Grove Atlantic

This article appeared in print under the headline “What goes up must stay up”