Rocky Jones wrote:

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1003/27iridium/%60

these are all going on Musk Falcon. Robert WB5MZO Life member AMSAT ARRL

Interesting, but some deeper digging turns up some startling numbers. Iridium-NEXT's hosted payload specifications are 50kg, 30x40x70cm, and 50W average. That's impressive. The orbit will be 780km, 86.4 degree inclination, or roughly the same neighborhood as AO-51, AO-27, etc.

The important parts are I get the feeling from their documents that they expect comms to go through their system, and here's the shocker:

http://www.iridium.com/Assets/Documents/library/brochures/iridium/21990_Host...

The price of deploying a “standard” hosted payload into space on Iridium NEXT primarily consists of a hosting fee paid to Iridium and the cost of the sensors. In addition, there is a modest, non-recurring engineering cost and annual data delivery charges once the data delivery starts. The hosting fee for a single hosted payload slot on Iridium NEXT is expected to cost less than $9 million, contributing to an unprecedented low total price for deploying such missions. The total price can be further reduced through volume discounts if the mission calls for a large number of hosted payloads across the constellation.

9 million PER payload. That might be a deal for someone wanting to replace an entire mission or constellation, but thats about 20 AO-51 satellites and launches to AMSAT, or P3E or Eagle or a GEO hosted payload at going rates.

Anyways, thanks for the heads up, and interesting reading if nothing else.

73, Drew KO4MA