by,

B.Amala
H.Phanindra
CVSR college of engineering.
 The Iridium System is a
satellite-based, wireless
personal communications
network to permit a wide range
of mobile telephone services
including voice, data and
networking.
 Each satellite is cross-linked to
four other satellites; two
satellites in the same orbital
plane and two in an adjacent
plane.
Each satellite is equipped
with 3 L-band antennas
forming a honeycomb
pattern that consists of 48
individual spot beams with
a total of 1628 cells aimed
directly below the satellite.

Each cell has 174 full

duplex voice channels for a
total of 283,272 channels
worldwide.

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o The polar constellation is
formed by 6 orbital planes
with 11 satellites per plane.
o The orbital planes are co-
axial at the polar axis,
separated from each other
at an angle of nearly 30
degrees.
o Iridium uses 66 operational
satellites configured at a
attitude of 780km(spare at
648) above the earth in six
nearly polar orbital times of
100 min 28 sec
12 Spare Satellites 66 Operational Satellites

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Air to Ground-
Voice:

phone
Existing
aircraft
Iridium based iridium
Communicatio
communicatio
n unit gatew
n systems
ay
Aircraft cockpit communication system

PSTN
 Air to Air-
Voice:

call
setup

Existing
Existing Iridium based
Iridium based aircraft
aircraft
communicatio
Communicatio iridium Communicatio
communicatio
n unit
n unit
n systems gatew n systems

Aircraft cockpit communication system ay Aircraft cockpit communication system

 The space segment which includes the
LEO satellites and related control facilities.
 System control segment
 Gateway segment
 The subscriber segment (phones and

pagers) which provide mobile access to the

satellite system and terrestrial wireless
systems.
 Three Principal Elements Of SV:
 Payload – Provides All Command, Control and Communications Functions
 Main Mission Antennas (MMAs) – Provide L-Band Telephony Functions
 Bus – Platform For SV Operations, Provides Power, Pointing, Propulsion

Battery &
Radiator

Solar Array Panels (2)

L-Band
MMA (3)
Payload
Electroncis

Ka-Band Feeder Ka-Band Cross-

Link Antenna (4) Link Antenna (4)

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 The frequency bands are as follows:
• L-band subscriber to satellite voice
links=1.616GHZ to 1.6265GHZ
• Ka-band gateway downlinks=19.4 GHZ to
19.6GHZ.
• Ka-band gateway up-links=29.1GHZ to
29.3GHZ
• Ka-band inter-satellite cross-links
=23.18GHZ to
23.38GHZ
 Using satellite cross links is the unique key to the
iridium system and the primary differentiation
between iridium and the traditional satellite bent
pipe system where all transmissions follow a path
from earth to satellite to earth.
 Iridium is the first mobile satellite to incorporate
sophisticated, onboard digital processing on each
satellite.
 Entire global coverage by a single wireless
network systems.
 With this system the subscriber will never listen a
message called ”OUT OF COVERAGE AREA”
•Less reliance on wire-line networks
•Continuous talk time
•Fewer outages
•Don’t need to be in the in the same footprint as the gateway

•High risk associated with designing, building, and launching

satellites.
• High cost for the terrestrial-based networking and interface
infrastructure.
•low power, dual mode transceivers are more cumbersome an
expensive
 Commercial point of view:
 Availability of services and early subscriber take-up will
be the key to survival for operators.
 Lower infrastructure costs will further help in early break-
even and profitability for network operators.

Economic point of view:

 Since the satellites has already been launched it is
important that this system is applied as much as
possible. Innovative Applications like “seismic alert of
earthquakes and tsunami” should be brought.