Iridium Communications acquires Satelles

Iridium to Expand its Reach as a Global Alternative PNT Service.„

This is how Iridium presents the acquisition of its partner Satelles. March, the 4 th 2024, Iridium Communications, strategic partner of the company Satelles of which it already owns 20% of capital, has announced its full acquisition, to become Iridium's "Satellite Time and Location" business unit. Iridium buys the 80% of capital remaining for approximately 115 million dollars (¹).

With this acquisition, Iridium aims to provide a PNT service (²) more robust and reliable than current GNSS networks (³).

Satelles has been supplying since 2016 the service " Satellite Time and Location" using the Iridium NEXT constellation satellite network (⁴) in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to broadcast its own timing and positioning signals. This service provides positioning equivalent to GPS. It is unique because it is the only PNT available today to use LEO signals, which are much more powerful, extremely secured and globally available. Iridium states that "The signal strength of its STL service is approximately 1.000 times greater than that of GPS, and it is highly secure".

The weaknesses of GPS are well known : signal strength of medium-orbit satellite positioning (MEO) – from 20.000 and 30.000 km – is low and can be easily "spoofed" by terrestrial interference. GPS spoofing has been frequently detected in parts of the Black Sea and near some commercial ports in China (⁵).

The initial target market for Satelles since 2016 is that of digital infrastructure installations that require highly accurate synchronization services to operate, such as 5G base stations and financial and business data centers. They number in the thousands and are constantly on the increase. SLT provides a service powerful enough to serve indoor receivers, Eliminating the use of outdoor antennas.

The maritime sector

Although it is not the first market for the Satelles solution, the maritime sector – and more broadly the transport sector – could become the second largest sector. According to Iridium, the STL service also provides a reinforced positioning signal, the second part of the GPS PNT service. It is this service that currently provides positioning for our mobile Iridium devices in pleasure boating (Iridium Extreme®, GO!® and GO! exec®, among others).

By integrating STL into its satellites, Iridium clearly intends to provide an alternative to GNSS in terms of safety and accuracy by leveraging the advantages of its network of global satellites in Low Earth Orbit.