Jane Edwards
Iridium Communications has completed the integration of communication and surveillance payloads with the Iridium NEXT satellite.
The company said Monday it will send the satellite with the integrated Aireon-hosted tracking payload for aircraft surveillance to Thales Alenia Space in Cannes, France for final qualification testing.
The integrated module is part of the 66 low-Earth orbit satellites that will comprise the Iridium NEXT constellation.
“We are full speed ahead with the build, and that much closer to our first launch scheduled for later this year,†said Scott Smith, chief operating officer at Iridium.
Orbital ATK has been tapped to build the satellites for the constellation at its Arizona facility.
Iridium expects to complete work on the satellite constellation in late 2017.
