Lockheed Loses ‘Iridium Next’ Satellite Build To Thales Team

The essential details of the WSJ article:

• $2.1 billion to build the 72 satellites including nine spares
• $800 million to launch (and to do some undefined ground upgrades)
• Launches envisioned as 2015 to 2017
• $1.8 billion in loan guarantees from ‘French export-credit agency’
• Loral considered the margins so thin that they earlier dropped out of the competition
• About $1.3 billion of Iridium’s current business is tied to the U.S. government
• Thales is European-based

There will be tearing of garments and gnashing of teeth at Lockheed.

Greetings from Colorado Springs

Posted by John B. Sheldon, Director of the National Space Studies Center

Mark has kindly (perhaps even foolishly!) allowed me to guest blog on Songs of Space & Nuclear War while I am attending both the National Security Space Office (NSSO) sponsored Space Professional Development Conference (SPDC) and the Space Foundation’s 26th National Space Symposium, both at the lovely Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.

I can’t promise Mark’s great popular cultural allusions and references, nor his elegant and engaging writing style, but I do hope to provide some insights to some of the goings on at these two events for the rest of this week.

Galileo Shrinkage

While the European Commission asked for bids on 28 to 30 satellites for their GPS-like Galileo program, Space News reports the maximum order will be 22 satellites.

In a profound understatement, the article reports Galileo still has budget and schedule challenge which may imperil its future with the European Parliament.