The Iridium communications service was launched on November 1, 1998 by what was then Iridium SSC. The first Iridium call was made by Vice President of the United States Al Gore to his wife Tipper Gore.
The founding company went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy nine months later, on August 13, 1999.
In August of 2000, Motorola announced that the Iridium satellites would have to be de-orbited; however, they remained in orbit and operational. In December of 2000 the US government stepped in to save Iridium by providing $72 million in exchange for a two year contract and approving the fire-sale of the company from US Bankruptcy court for $25 million, in March of 2001. This erased over $4 billion in debt.
Iridium service was restarted in 2001 by the newly founded Iridium Satellite LLC, which was owned by a group of private investors. Although the satellites and other assets and technology behind Iridium were estimated to have cost around US$6 billion, the investors bought the firm for about US$35 million.
Very convenient deal, eh?
The U.S. Department of Defense, through its own dedicated gateway, relies on Iridium for global communications capabilities.
..........yep..............