Iridium
Running Out Of Time
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On
July 31, a bankruptcy court gave the Iridium satellite venture a
week and a half to find a buyer for the
company's assets. Iridium has until August 9 to try and work
out a new deal with Castle Harlan or another company, such as New
York-based Venture Partners, which expressed interest in the company
earlier this year. A team of people who worked with  Castle
Harlan are still looking for funding, that group includes former
Iridium Chief Executive Edward Staiano. Iridium still believes they
could pull out a last-minute deal to sell the satellites and the
company's other assets, despite the limited time available to them.
Iridium attorney Bob Beury said, "Until the satellites hit the
atmosphere, there's always a chance for a deal. It seems very, very
unlikely, but it's still possible…There are some people out there
who are serious. As soon as Castle Harlan said no, we started
getting calls." If those talks fail to produce a viable plan to
save the bankrupt company, Motorola will have to obtain court
approval to proceed with plans to remove the satellites from orbit.
 Motorola,
owned 19 percent of Iridium, sought approval from the bankruptcy
court to destroy the satellites because a deal between Iridium and
Castle Harlan wasn't coming together. Motorola had tried to shift
operations from Motorola to Boeing, which Castle Harlan planned to
have maintain the satellites. Motorola and Castle Harlan also failed
to agree on the sale of thousands of handsets and other equipment to
Castle Harlan. "It is obvious that the Iridium system is beyond
saving as a business venture," Motorola wrote in its motion
before the court
Motorola, in a
statement on its website, said, "We have a plan in place to
decommission the constellation once the deorbiting plan is
finalized. Details of that plan will be discussed once it is
finalized." Motorola
had said in March that it would take up to nine months to rewrite
software to fire the thrusters for the initial orbit-lowering
maneuver, and up to two years until all the satellites have been
deorbited. The total cost of the deorbiting maneuver is estimated to
be US$37 million. Motorola
has been maintaining Iridium's satellites at a cost of US$10.1
million dollars per month.
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