Iridium Integration Challenges As mentioned in our previous posts, we are beginning to develop more sophisticated payloads. One of the features that we are adding is two-way global communications with Iridium. As payloads become more complex a number of issues pop up. First, the total labor required to design, program, and test the payloads. But the increase in effort is non-linear. Every interface, every additional programmer, and every...

Mission: Global, Two-Way Comms While APRS has served as the primary tracking system on our previous missions, the idea of having two-way communications capability in all geographic areas is appealing. We have investigated satellite communications for our future missions. Starting out, we considered several services, including: OrbComm Globalstar Iridium After talking with fellow balloonists and evaluating the options, we decided Iridium...