Iridium status update

Craig Cholar (3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL)
Fri, 24 Jul 98 11:56:58 PDT

Florida Today Space Online has an article about the recent Iridium
failures:

http://www.flatoday.com/space/today/072498h.htm

Summary:
The Long March launch will be in late August, and will add two satellites
to plane two, which has two open positions from failed satellites.  Each
plane contains 11 primary satellites plus a spare.

The Vandenberg Delta launch will now launch five Iridiums, instead of the
originally planned three, and will deploy them into plane six, the
plane originally to be used by the Long March.  The Vandenberg launch
is scheduled for late summer.

The cause of the latest two failures is still under investigation, but
Motorola says that the failures don't appear related to previous ones.
Despite the problems, officials say that the Iridium service is still
scheduled to begin commercial operations on Sept 23.

Craig Cholar    3432p@vm1.cc.nps.navy.mil