Jane Edwards
Iridium Communications plans to launch on May 19 the Iridium-6 rideshare mission aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Falcon 9 will send into orbit five Iridium NEXT satellites and two satellites as part of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On mission of NASA and GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, Iridium said Monday.
The planned launch would bring the total number of Iridium NEXT satellites in orbit to 55 as part of a potential $3 billion program to replace an existing constellation of communications satellites this year.
The two GRACE-FO satellites are now at Harris’ facility at Vandenberg AFB, while Iridium is scheduled this week to ship the five Iridium NEXT satellites to the launch complex.
The announcement came a week after the fifth batch of 10 Iridium satellites that launched in late-March entered the testing and validation phase.
