Creating Iridium

by Durrell Hillis

CREATING IRIDIUM describes how a wife's simple question led to a brilliant idea that turned the space industry and mobile communications literally upside down. An interlinked network of 66 satellites providing communication to every spot on the globe was unthinkable, world wide operating licenses were believed impossible to attain and raising billions of dollars from 17 international companies seemed beyond the reach of a small division of Motorola that was considered a bit player in the space arena.

Despite overwhelming odds the Iridium team threw away virtually every standard practice in the space industry, created new models for manufacturing and mega-project management, produced a satellite a day, put 72 satellites in orbit in 13 months and completed the $5b system on schedule and on budget.

From the KGB agent hired as a consultant to Iridium to Osama bin Laden's brother as an Iridium, Inc board member to the author's surreal experience of being in the Russian ICBM factory and given a camera to take pictures four weeks after seeing the outside of the factory in a highly classified meeting at the NRO, the story of the creation of Iridium is an inspiring look at how a remarkable team of teams' passion to do the impossible resulted in one of the great technological achievements of our time.

After a system lifetime lasting 10 years beyond the expected, the widespread and growing number of benefits of Iridium to the world continues with the replacement of the original satellites by Iridium NEXT beginning the second half of 2016.

401 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2016

Reviews

[Kris Overtoom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for young engineering students to read for insight about how "the real world" affects engineering projects. It talks about the funding, the politics, the need for good negotiating skills and project planning and the interconnectedness between design and manufacturing. This is not a highly technical book, so managers, space enthusiasts and 20th Century history buffs would also enjoy it. What I liked about it was that Mr. Hillis didn't just give his perspective--he had designers and decision-makers from every discipline share their stories and perspectives, including someone from the sub-contractors. It is organized more based on engineering processes than on time, but even the different engineering processes take place in specific chronological order. There were times, however, when I had wished Mr. Hillis would have included a timeline of events in the appendices. In many ways, this book is as much an homage to Motorola as it is to the Iridium program.

I enjoyed reading it for many reasons, but I am also a self-professed science and history geek.

[toxygen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unprecedented insight into the development and management of one of the biggest aerospace endeavours in human history. The author shines light on all aspects of the Iridium program but business one. The book gives a glimpse of the role of luck and astuteness in so many different situations where Iridium could've been easily killed before it began.

Even though many of the stories resemble action movies, there are still occasions when reader is left with the feeling that author didn't or couldn't tell more about this or that situation (mainly in striking deals with Russians and Chinese).

Nevertheless, this is essential reading for anyone involved in aerospace as it also provides many important lessons in control and management of projects of all sizes.

[Alan Rohwer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a real insider's look at the development and deployment of the Iridium communications satellite system - a highly unique & innovative system. As a member of the engineering team, I was very interested in hearing background into stories I had heard during the development process. The story is told by the people who did the work. This is a plus and a minus since it makes it an engineering/management story told by mostly engineers. I worked on the payload development side, later in system support and was interested to hear about other aspects of the process. I found the stories of the launch campaigns of special interest. The book pretty much ends at the deployment with a brief section about the stuff that has happened since, including the re-financing and re-application of the system, which goes on to this day.
I am now reading the book "Eccentric Orbits" which actually is something of a companion book but mostly focuses on Dan Colussy and seems to largely ignore the work of the people who actually created the system.
Congratulations to Durrell Hillis and the other contributors in capturing this very interesting story.