What is iridium?

1997 and 1998, Iridium Company of the United States launched dozens of artificial satellites for global communication of mobile phones. These artificial satellites are called iridium satellites. Iridium mobile communication system is a global satellite mobile communication system designed by Motorola entrusted by Iridium Company of the United States. It can make and receive telephone signals anywhere on the earth by using a satellite handset. In March 2000, Iridium Company declared bankruptcy.

In order to ensure the coverage of communication signals and obtain clear call signals, the original design idea is that the global satellite mobile communication system must set seven satellite orbits in the sky, and each orbit is evenly distributed with 1 1 satellites, forming a complete satellite mobile communication constellation system. Because they are just like 77 electrons outside the nucleus of chemical element iridium (Ir), the global satellite mobile communication system is called iridium. Later, after calculation, it was confirmed that setting six satellite orbits could meet the technical performance requirements. Therefore, the total number of satellites in the global satellite mobile communication system has been reduced to 66, but it is still used to being called iridium mobile communication system.