Published: 7/24/1998

Edward F.Staiano, Chairman and Executive officer, Iridium World Communications, Ltd., reflects on the Russain contribution to the Iridium project. We, at the Iridium company, are extremely excited about the prospects of being the world's first global wireless telephone company and are very much delighted to have Russia as a part of that. Our Russian partner, Khrunichev, is a very important participant in our commercial and technical activities as both a provider of launch services and an operator of the gateway here in Moscow. Khrunichev's Proton rocket has played a very significant part for the whole of the Iridium programme. We have six orbital planes, and to provide global coverage we have to have eleven active satellites and one spare in each plane - that's twelve satellites in each of six planes, 72 in total. The Russian Proton can launch eleven satellites at once, and an American Delta rocket can carry five. By having a five and a seven we can put twelve satellites with two launches to fill one entire plane. Also, the Chinese rocket can launch two satellites, allowing us to have in some orbital planes two Delta launches (five each) and one Chinese launch to make the twelve. The mixture of the three rockets that we had picked was very important to the launch programme. We wanted to spread the launch risk across the three launch vehicles and, perhaps more importantly, to deploy our space constellation quickly. We were fortunate that all the three launch providers did a magnificent job. In all, Khrunichev made three Proton launches to deploy 21 satellites of out 72 in the Iridium constellation. If we had not employed the Proton, we would have needed more time to deploy the system and we would have needed to sign additional contracts with the other two suppliers of launch vehicles. As a result, we would have to have more launches and a higher risk. You can clearly see that commercialisation is happening in Russia very fast. It is very exciting forus to see that the Russians are building new businesses and trying to find solutions to the problems that their country has. They have the willingness to reach out, the willingness to participate actively in the company, be a part in the global organisation,be a "give-and-take" in the organisation. And then the whole social issue. We have seen a tremendous growth in a very short period of time. Now they travel all over the world, they participate in various meetings all over the world. It is very exciting for us and it is very exciting for me personally. I have been a long-standing lover of Russian music, art and literature - it is wonderful and it has opened up for us again. I enjoy coming to Moscow because Khrunichev people are not just our business partners - we are good friends. Sometimes you hear about the Russian bureaucracy and the related problems for the westerners in making business with the Russians. But in fact bureaucracy exists everywhere - you have bureaucracy in the US, China and other countries, and sometimes it is extremely difficult to get things done. I do not think that Russia has something that would make business activities more difficult than in other countries.(GST798.1) (VK)

Article ID: 232