Posted on 04/15/2011 2:25:43 PM PDT by jmcenanly
To date, Iridium NEXT is the largest commercial space launch contract with any single entity. All total, the contract is worth an estimated $3 billion. As part of that Iridium Communications Inc. signed into a deal with Space Explorations Technologies (SpaceX) as its major launch provider of its communications satellites on SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket. The manner in which the Iridium NEXT family of satellites is launched will be a dramatic departure from how Iridium launched its first suite of satellites back in the 90s.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Yeah, SpaceX is doing the engineering right. Get hardware working, test repeatedly until reliability is achieved, then make a small step forward, rinse and repeat.
An approach advocated early and often by sci-fi author and computer guru Jerry Pournelle.
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