Motorola/Iridium

[Richard Barth]

At 10:00 PM 10.03.2000 -0500, you wrote:
>Yes, Iridium is week-to-week these days.  I've even read that the Iridium
constellation of satellites may be required to "deorbit" - which I think
means they need to be moved into orbits that will cuase them to burn up in
the atmosphere or some such.  Of course I find that difficult to believe...
 surely some entity will assume ownership of them and put them to use.  But
it seems that the original Iridium plan has failed, bigtime.
>

Yes, burning them up is what they've talked about.  Whether it will happen
is still
questionable.  Iridium has mentioned that possibility in court filings and
Motorola
has mention of it on its web site, but the fact remains that the
constellation is an
Iridium asset which remains under court jurisdiction so long as the
bankruptcy is
pending.  The court (and thus the company's creditors) would have more than
a little
to say about it, so it's not something Iridium could do in a fit of pique.
I suspect
the repetition of this idea is intended primarily to arouse prompt action
by people 
who might be interested in buying Iridium's assets, including those birds.

Interesting side note:  I read last week that Iridium is moving from their
downtown
DC offices to Northern Virginia, and had been offered $200K for their office 
furniture and fixtures.  I don't think that's gonna help...

Dick


-- 
Richard Barth *** W3HWN@AMRAD.ORG *** Silver Spring MD