[michael_miller]

Thanks to Elon Musk, we have real-time tracking for modern airplanes! Iridium NEXT has ADS-B receivers on each of their satellites which can see all ADS-B equipped airplanes around the entire globe. It's mostly up-and-running, you can follow the progress at: https://www.iridiumnext.com/

Background on the system for tracking: https://aireon.com/

[txcwpalpha]

"Thanks to Elon Musk"? Seriously? This is exactly the type of Musk-worship that makes people angry.

Elon Musk has hardly anything to do with Iridium NEXT. SpaceX launched the satellites, but that's it. If it wasn't SpaceX, it would've been any other launch provider (just like how China, Russia, and McDonnell Douglas provided 23 Iridium launches, compared to SpaceX's 8 Iridium NEXT launches).

You really should be saying "Thanks to Bary Bertiger, Raymond J. Leopold and Ken Peterson", who were the three engineers who actually came up with, designed, and developed the entire Iridium constellation, as well as Motorola, the company that financed Iridium, Lockheed/Orbital ATK/Thales, the companies that built the satellites, and of course Iridium Communications, the company that actually runs it.

Give credit where credit is due. And it's not due to Musk.

[valuearb]

You both are talking past each other. Sure Elon had nothing to do with developing iridium technology. The question is whether Iridium would have been brought back to life without SpaceX. Iridium went bankrupt because it's costs were so high, they went 15 years without replacing a satellite, even though they were only rated for 8 years. They had plans to replace them, but kept postponing. It really looked like they couldn't raise enough money for the huge launch costs and were were just going to ride them into the ground (literally).

Then they suddenly got new funding and started launching satellites again in 2017. Right at the same time Falcon 9s dramatically cut commercial launch costs by well over half compared to other launch providers.

So Elon deserves some credit here, just as Bary, Raymond and Ken do.

[txcwpalpha]

Iridium "got new funding" in 2001 when it was bought by PE firms and restructured to generate piles of cash from selling satellite communications to the government, long before your claim of 2017. It had nothing to do with the Falcon 9 other than coincidence. Trying to claim otherwise is misleading.

[valuearb]

And what did they do for 15 years with that money? Made plans to replace their dying satellites and having every single plan refused to be funded because of the massive costs.

Suddenly SpaceX cuts launch costs by 4x and Iridium is able to get funded and launch again. Trying to claim coincidence is misleading.

[snowwrestler]

I agree with you about Musk worship in general, but I bet the financial viability of a satellite constellation is at least somewhat dependent on launch costs, and SpaceX has undeniably brought those down significantly. IIRC, the original Iridium company went bankrupt and the constellation was only kept in service by a U.S. government bailout.

[sjburt]

What does it have to with Elon? The owner is Iridium Communications and the satellites are produced by Thales. They're being launched on Falcon 9 but they could have been launched on anything.

[valuearb]

Iridium was able to be resurrected only because the Falcon 9 slashed the cost to replace their satellites, it was a shell of a bankrupt company for nearly two decades.

[txcwpalpha]

Iridium was "resurrected" from their bankruptcy over 17 years ago, in 2001. Their resurrection has nothing to do with the Falcon 9, and they were planning on launching The NEXT constellation before Falcon 9 was even on the scene. If not F9, they had plans to use the Ukrainian Dnepr. The Falcon 9 ended up letting them do it for cheaper, but that still doesn't mean Musk or SpaceX were necessary (or worthy of thanks) for it to happen.

[valuearb]

They went 15 years post-bankruptcy floundering around post bankruptcy without being able to replace a single one of their rapidly decaying satellites. They made numerous plans over those 17 years and none could get funded because they never made financial sense.

They could never get funding to use Ukrainian Dnepr rockets even if they were cheaper than SpaceX. The Ukrainians rockets payload capacity is far smaller than a Falcon 9, quality is questionable, and clearly would never have been able to hit the cadence Iridium needed (only 9 launches this decade, barely more than one per year).

Then SpaceX came along. No-one thought the Falcon 9 would be a success, because it was so ambitious compared to the Falcon 1. Then no-one thought SpaceX could be competitive on pricing, and SpaceX blew everyone away on pricing way before they even started re-using their rockets (because Musk and his team were smart enough to design the Falcon 9 to be the first rocket that could be mass assembled. He's not Tesla or Edison, in reality he's Henry Ford). SpaceX's success proving the Falcon 9 was a big reason iridium got the massive funding they needed for the new satellites.

[matz1]

Sure it could be launched on anything but the fact remain that it is the elon musk company that launch it, instead any other.

[mrguyorama]

I didn't realize ADS-B had that kind of range.

[convivialdingo]

I’m able to track aircraft around 100 miles away using a cheap receiver and a 50’ wire antenna. About $50 total investment. I would guess commercial aircraft must have fairly high watt transmitters.

[zkms]

They have upward-facing transmit antennae for 1090MHz ADS-B/extended-squitter for TCAS reasons.