主题：【原创】铱星陨落（序） -- r33300

铱星公司破产重组后，并没有把铱星系统废弃，系统现在还在运行使用中。而且他们正在设计下一代的铱星系统，计划2015年开始发射。以下转自wikipedia：

Iridium Satellite LLC merged with a special purpose acquisition company (GHQ) created by the investment bank Greenhill & Co. (NYSE: GHL) in September, 2009 to create Iridium Communications, Inc. The public company trades on NASDAQ under the symbol "IRDM". The company has approximately 523,000 subscribers as of the end of December, 2011 (compared to 427,000 in December, 2010). Revenue for the full year 2011 was US $384.3 million with Operational EBITDA of US $190.4 million.

The system is being used extensively by the U.S. Department of Defense through the DoD gateway in Hawaii. The DoD made up 23% of Iridium's revenues in 2010.