WASHINGTON - Chicken Little could be in for a big surprise.
It’s not the sky that will be falling, but if a suitor doesn’t rescue the debt-riddled Iridium satellite-telephone company by March 17, its 66 communication satellites are going to make a rather early reentry.
That deadline was set by Motorola, which has lost nearly $1 billion in the operation and maintenance of the $5 billion, 10-year-old Iridium constellation. Motorola, the founding investor and majority shareholder, holds an 18 percent stake in Iridium.
"Typically what we look for are titanium spheres and objects made of stainless steel (to survive)."
To stem the bloodletting of cash, Motorola, based in Schaumberg, Illinois, has declined to provide any more funding and has threatened to yank the Volkswagen-size satellites from orbit and send them on a fiery suicide dive through Earth's atmosphere.
"That is a realistic scenario," said Scott Wyman, a Motorola spokesman.
The move came after cellular communications pioneer Craig McCaw and his Eagle River investment group begged off a plan to buy beleaguered Iridium last Friday.
In a desperate move Monday, Iridium asked a federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan for interim financing to keep afloat as it sought out another backer. The court threw the company a lifeline and approved its request for $3 million.
But as the March 17 deadline looms, no savior has yet emerged to rescue Iridium.
Despite industry rumors, it’s unlikely that McCaw and his group of investors will step in at the last minute -- making more likely the prospect of a celestial light show of satellite debris.
"Our decision on Friday was final," said Roger Nyhus, a spokesman for Teledesic. The Bellevue, Washington satellite-communications company was co-founded by McCaw and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to build a satellite-based "internet in the sky."
What can be expected from these Iridium satellites being brought back to Earth?
Motorola’s Wyman says that the company has a "very controlled process" for bringing down the satellites. "They will be brought down in stages, not all at once," he said.
It is expected to take a few years for all 66 satellites to come down.
But the reentry business is an imprecise one at best because objects can survive and make it all the way to the ground, said Bill Ailor, director for the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corporation in Los Angeles.
Objects typically enter the atmosphere at a blazing 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) per second and are often incinerated by friction with Earth's atmosphere. But materials designed to be heat-resistant often can survive the plunge all the way to the ground. "Typically what we look for are titanium spheres and objects made of stainless steel (to survive)," Ailor says. Glass also can survive.
It’s unlikely, though, that debris from Iridium’s satellites will hit a populated area.
"The Earth is a big place," he said. "But the satellites burning up in the atmosphere will probably be visible to the eye."
About 10,000 objects bigger than the size of a basketball are tracked by the Air Force Space Command. So far, only one person ever has been hit by falling debris. In 1997, Lottie Williams (below) was hit on the shoulder by a 6-inch (15-centimeter) charred piece of metal mesh that came from a tank of a Delta 2 rocket. Lottie, who is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was hit while walking in nearby park.
One high note, however, is that the age of random reentries may be coming to a close.
As the number of satellites is expected to increase dramatically because of the current boom in the telecommunications industry, new rules are being considered that would require companies to safely take their satellites out of orbit at mission's end, Ailor said.
Lucky for us because Iridium’s future seems to be getting dimmer. On the heels of the bankruptcy court authorizing the sale of furniture, fixtures and equipment at Iridium’s headquarters in Washington, an e-mail was sent out Wednesday that seems to have driven another nail in the company’s coffin.
"Please note that as of March 16, the Iridium.com e-mail address for me will no longer be valid," said the e-mail sent to reporters from Iridium spokesman David St. John.
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