About Iridium

📘 From iridium.com:

“The Iridium constellation of 66 cross-linked Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, plus several in-orbit spares, means truly global coverage and real mobility everywhere.

The network is considered a meshed constellation of interconnected, cross-linked satellites so that each satellite “talks” with the other nearby satellites in adjacent orbits.

Unique to Iridium, this architecture provides inherent advantages in performance and reliability over other mobile satellite services providers.”

Iridium operates in the microwave L-band, which means that successful data transmission relies on having an unobstructed line-of-sight view of a satellite. Satellites travel quite quickly - from horizon to horizon in under 10 minutes - so with sensible application design, it is possible to transmit data, even with a heavily obstructed view of the sky.

The Iridium website (www.iridium.com) has more information. Ground Control (formerly Rock Seven) has been an Iridium Partner since 2008.

About SBD

SBD (Short Burst Data) is a messaging system with limited bandwidth, allowing for the transmission of packets up to 340 bytes in size, while receiving packets of 270 bytes.

SBD is well-suited for applications that require regular exchange of small amounts of information. This makes it particularly suitable for tracking, telemetry, system control, and monitoring applications.

However, it is important to note that SBD may not be suitable for scenarios where very low latency is crucial or when the data to be transmitted exceeds a few thousand bytes. Sending larger data files like images or GRIB files is typically not feasible with SBD due to its limitations.

In optimal conditions, with an unobstructed view of the sky, SBD allows for approximately one send/receive operation every 10 seconds.