Published: 7/24/1998

The recent council of directors of the Iridium company was held in Moscow on 15-16 July. The main topic of the meeting was to discuss the report of the Khrunichev State Scientific Industrial Space Center on readiness of the "gateway" earth terminal in Moscow. According to Anatoly Kiselyev, general director at Khrunichev, the Moscow gateway will be fully operational by 24 September, the day of the commercial start of the Iridium system. Khrunichev became joint shareholders in the Iridium company in 1992, after the Russian government permitted it to invest $82m in the international commercial project worth $5bn, which is providing a constellation of 72 700kg low-orbit communications satellites to provide radio and telephone services to customers at any point on the Earth. Being an Iridium equity-owner (with a 5% stock of shares), Khrunichev and its partner Iridium-Eurasia, are exclusive providers of Iridium services in Russia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. To provide a better coverage, one more gateway will be erected in Novosibirsk, south west of Siberia. Khrunichev also acts as a provider of the Proton launch vehicle for placing Iridium satellites in orbits. The respective contract with Motorola was signed in 1993. Last year two rockets were used, and just one this year. They have successfully deployed 21 satellites. The Proton could be used in the future for replacement of inoperative satellites. Kiselyev said that for various reasons five satellites out of the 51 deployed by the Chinese and American rockets have become inoperative, whereas all those put in orbits atop Protons have been functioning properly. For the Iridium system to function at full strength it is necessary to have 66 operable satellites, so that the constellation now has only two redundant ones, he added. At the meeting in Moscow, Khrunichev demanded that the amount of money for advertising in the CIS be increased by 4-5 times. Iridium's senior managers said that in July the company will launch a $140m global advertising campaign, but refused to specify how much money has been given to Khrunichev. Anatoly Kiselyev just said that the assigned funds would be sufficient only for Russia, not for the whole of the CIS. In the meantime, Khrunichev and Iridium-Eurasia have signed 42 agreements with providers of cellular phone services in Russia and eight agreements with national communications companies of former USSR republics. Marketing studies conducted by several Russian and foreign organisations showed a market for 120-130,000 Iridium subscriber units in the CIS in the next 1.5-2 years and up to 300,000 in 2003, as compared with the overall Iridium capacity of 4-5 million subscribers. Khrunichev managers also revealed that they have already received requests for 150 sets of mobile phones from FAPSI, the State Agency of the Governmental Communications. Other establish-ments interested in Iridium phones are RAO ES, the United Power Systems of Russia, and MChS, the Ministry for Emergencies. But the bulk of orders is expected to come from "New Russians", who are not happy with the relatively poor quality of service provided by cellular phone companies. Initially, a full package of Iridium services will cost $5000, which includes a 400-gramme mobile phone priced from $1500 to $2500, a direct number in "the Iridium virtual country", a deposit and a subscriber payment for several months. The monthly subscriber payment is set at $40. Intensive tests of the Iridium constellation prior to the commercial activation have revealed that its signals affect the GLONASS global navigation system due to the insufficient quality of the receivers aboard GLONASS satellites. Iridium is now trying to prove that these effects will cause only marginal navigational errors. This is being proved in a series of special tests. (AS798.7) (VK)

Article ID: 231