Rocketlab acquires Iridium

everfrustrated

RocketLab gains spectrum + profitable satellite company

moralestapia

Crazy. I didn't know you could acquire things worth 20x more than you.

phildenhoff

Rocket lab used to be a New Zealand source of pride, having started there. From the press release, now it’s American. What happened?

JanSolo

I think they saw how SpaceX was using Starlink as launch lever to provide SpaceX a baseline of regular launches at bare-minimum cost. As RocketLab starts to scale up, being able guarantee a minimum number of launches is a significant hedge against the dips in the global satellite market. Also, RocketLab builds their own sats and can add the Iridium constellation replacements to their order book. It's a win-win. A smart move by Peter Beck and his team.

wateralien

“Rocket Lab” not “RocketLab”. Although I think the latter is better.

Centigonal

"Rocket Lab acquires Iridium" sounds like a notification out of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri or Anno 2205.

pelorat

I like RocketLab. Looking forward to Neutron etc. But this is a bad investment, no other way to put it.

proee

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks. Edit: Another note on space junk is the effect on our atmosphere with all the "burning-up" of various materials. Apparently they don't just completely vaporize, but instead leave behind micro particles that float around for a long time. People are studying this and hopefully raising appropriate alarms (Making the case for wood satellites).

khurs

Good to see the competition making moves, SpaceX's huge lead isn't ideal.

ryandvm

I dunno. I would be surprised if a 30 year old telecommunications network is going to be technically competitive with a SpaceX's LEO network that is still launching satellites as we speak. How much market is there for people that just want low speed connectivity from the middle of nowhere?

gigatexal

Who? is buying who? I guess good for them and for the folks who just got paid.

seany

Did they forget to read ecentric orbits first?

BrandoElFollito

As an ex-Motorolan (1998-2008), I sometimes look at what remains of the big mighty company and there is not much. Here in Europe it is even less, at least in the US you see the umpires (or somebody else, not sure as I fo not know baseball) with their half-headsets with the Motorola logo. It is a shame, I liked this company very much.

reactordev

They can have it, Iridium is so slow.

dreamcompiler

I highly recommend the book Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story by John Bloom. The story of how Iridium came to be and how difficult it was to keep Motorola from literally destroying the whole constellation (which they had originally built!) is quite fascinating. Tidbit: Author is also the real-life person behind the comedic persona Joe Bob Briggs. If you ever lived in Texas you know that name. And yes the guy can write seriously good nonfiction.

nixosbestos

God I hate hate hate hate justified text. Just ridiculously stupid.

ozmaverick72

Isn't this a bit weird? Has Rocketlab launched payloads for Iridium ? Is Iridium adding to their constellation or are they just trying to make a few dollars out of their existing satellites by suppling messaging for things like Garmin SPOT etc. Iridium satellites aren't in LEO orbits - can Rocketlab satellites even deploy payloads to those orbits ? Maybe the newer bigger rocket they are working on can but i don't think the current Electron rocket can. I guess it only has to make sense to Wallstreet types ....

kha1n3vol3

SpaceX will acquire Rocketlab.

itsthecourier

I have used iridium before, IIRC I paid 1 usd per KB, PER KILOBYTE (!!!), to track some stratospheric globes we launched in like 2014