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This week, Belarussian business group Gurtam is organizing a major Telematics-2018 conference for its partners. Gurtam works in the field of satellite surveillance, so most of the guests come from related companies.
Speakers' speeches address highly specialized topics: for example, how does the Wialon surveillance system (Gurtam's main product) work? Bluetooth-trends in telematics, development prospects and so on.
Also at the event were representatives of Iridium. It is the first operator to provide 100% coverage of the planet with satellite telephony. We spoke with the Deputy Director of Sales in Russia and the CIS countries, Konstantin Kolupaev
– Iridium satellites orbit Falcon 9. How did the cooperation with SpaceX begin? Was there fear because of the steps of the stand?
– Iridium was one of SpaceX's first commercial customers. When the actual construction of the satellites began, a large number of launches were planned. The market is quite dense: companies are waiting for the launch of their satellites. Iridium first accepted all its launches with SpaceX, received a good price and at the same time a reliable partner.
The current Iridium satellite constellation, which has been almost completely replaced, is almost 20 years old. Satellite launches are a very unstable thing due to weather conditions and other factors, the schedule has been constantly postponed. Iridium satellites began to fail – the fuel on board was exhausting. We received a proposal to use the already sent scene in space. The company weighed the risks. On the one hand, Iridium had spare satellites. They were immediately done by nine – in case something goes wrong. More insurance. And we managed to speed up launches for six months
– What is the satellite resource, how often should they be updated?
– The current group includes 66 satellites on the main orbit and 9 satellites on the reserve – in case of unforeseen circumstances. For example, in 2009, a former Russian military satellite shot down one of the Iridium satellites. In fact, it is a problem: a space debris is formed, you have to maneuver. The situation is rather complicated.
The claimed life of the Iridium satellites is 15 years. But now, there are satellites that were launched in 1998-99, and they have been working for almost twenty years. Nine satellites are enough to protect against any case of force majeure.
– The satellites are planned for 77?
– 75: 66 core and 9 reserve. There will also be 6 on the field if you need to replace. Where 77: Iridium is the 77th element of the periodic table. But at startup, the architecture has changed somewhat, and it turned out that there are enough 66 satellites. In dysprosium, no one renamed the system, they left Iridium
– Satellite communications are expensive. Is the price reduction planned?
– Iridium took a $ 3 billion loan to restart its satellite group. This is an amount large enough to be returned. From the point of view of simple arithmetic, it becomes clear that Iridium needs to earn money urgently in order to remain a profitable business – it is traded on the stock market. I would not expect Iridium to reduce its costs in the near future. On the contrary, new products are being manufactured that are even more expensive than what Iridium currently has.
– Iridium is involved in the work on the ADS-B aeronautical project, then?
– After what happened to the missing Malaysian Boeing ] (flight MH370 flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on the night of March 8, 2014 with 239 people on board and disappeared without a trace, the site of crash has not yet been found it was decided: by 2020 year, all airlines must ensure the installation of their ADS-B transponders. They send their location with a certain periodicity – about once every 15 minutes As soon as something is happening on board, the system must transmit information every minute to understand the direction of the flight, the speed, etc. This requirement of the aeronautical and Iridium is in no way related
Where does Iridium come from? NEXT satellites have a commercial payload program. We have offered third-party companies a useful workload.The navi operator Canada Nav Canada, along with Iridium and several investors, created Aieron. It has installed payloads on Iridium satellites and can process the signals of these transponders ADS-B.
The conference will conclude tomorrow with reports on telematics of complex objects, fuel flow meters, satellite communications and other performance. 19659020] Our channel in Telegram.
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