Iridium-NEXT SV102-SV114

Prime manufacturer	Thales Alenia Space (prime), Orbital (integration)
Platform	ELiTeBus-1000
Operator	Iridium Communications Inc.
Mass at launch	860 kg
Dry Mass	678 kg
Basic shape
Dimension (m)
Equipment
Solar array	2 deployable solar arrays
Stabilization
Propulsion
DC power	50 W
Design lifetime	10 years (design), 15 years (planned)

The 10 'Iridium Next' satellites launched on January 14, 2017 designed by Thales Alenia Space in France, and then assembled and tested in an assembly line fashion in partnership with Orbital ATK in Arizona. Sixty-six are needed to fully replace Iridium′s current constellation, and Iridium ordered 15 more as spares. The upgraded network will offer faster broadband connections, improved functionality and 3G-equivalent cellular phone services for Iridium′s pool of nearly 850,000 subscribers, a client list that includes the U.S. military, oil and gas companies, aviation and maritime operators, and mining and construction contractors. All of the upgraded satellites also carry piggyback payloads for Aireon, an affiliate of Iridium, to help air traffic controllers track airplane movements worldwide. Four of the Iridium Next satellites launched Saturday host an antenna to monitor maritime traffic for exactEarth, a Canadian company, and Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Florida.
Each spacecraft employs an L-band phased array antenna for generation of the 48-beam, 4,700 km diameter cellular pattern on the Earth’s surface for communication with subscribers/users. Ka-band links are also provided for communications with ground-based gateways and for crosslinks with adjacent spacecraft in orbit. The cross-linked 66 satellite constellation forms a global network in space allowing communications from a ground or airborne user from any location on Earth to virtually anywhere else on Earth.

On Jan 14, 2017 the first cluster of second generation communications satellites for Iridium Communications was launched, aboard the first SpaceX Falcon 9 to fly since the Amos-6 pad accident last year. The Falcon 9 placed all ten satellites in the correct orbit, and the first stage landed on the barge ′Just Read The Instructions&prime.
The Falcon 9 second stage was expected to be deorbited over Antarctica.
However, JSpOC is tracking 11 objects in orbit rather than the expected 10. It′s possible the 11th is just a minor piece of debris, or there may have been an issue with stage 2 deorbit.
The Iridium satellites carry communications payloads for global mobile communications coverage as well as Aireon ADS-B airplane data relay payloads and, on four of the 10 satellites, AIS ship tracking payloads for the Canadian company ExactEarth.

Ref.: #7(JR734,735), #14, #226, #228 - update: 11.12.17