Iridium) LEO satellite. This bold venture led to an explosion of new thinking about communications and the uses of space to enable it. The key mindset change was that space infrastructure was seen as critical to providing market drivers information services to everyone In the early nineties, Hughes started its Direct TV service which used high power GEo birds to provide home users with their own satellite TV stations. This immediately proved to be successful because it offered many more channels at much better quality than cable services. The Iridium announcement set off a huge flurry of interest in both personal communication services as well as broadband information services. Teledesic, backed by Gates and McCaw, was formed and announced it would build a 980 satellite system to provide internet in the sky services and enable worldwide interactive games to be played. Hughes, Lockheed Martin and Loral all countered with announcements of their own systems. Not to be outdone the europeans announced several of their own systems. In addition to PCs broadband systems, several ompanies (Lockheed Martin, Orbital Sciences) announced constellations to provide services from space. The US government decided to adopt a policy that restricted such systems to 1 meter resolution although the technology to do better is well in hand. It also restricted the locations where such pictures could be taken. Thus current policy does not allow imaging of Israel. The I meter restriction was felt to balance the national security interests with the ability to build the market. All of this commercial activity was to be driven by the capital markets. by the mid nineties the cumulative amount of capital to be raised was $500 billion to cover all the announced systems. The Wall Street Journal called this the second Apollo era. Through the mid nineties, the companies raised money and started building. Iridium was the first of the big systems out of the block. It launched its service in late 1998 Within a year, it filed for bankruptcy. The service was a technical success and a marketing disaster. Iridium was selling big, bulky handsets for $3000 and charging $3/min. It did offer global service but in high density areas it was inferior to cellular service. Basically the market shifted faster than Iridium could respond. In 1989 there were no small triband phones. In 1999 one could buy a small high quality triband phone that would work in Europe, the US and Japan It was much cheaper to use than an Iridium phone. Thus a key part of the Iridium market vanished. Iridium could not sell enough handsets to the rest of the global mobile market and ecla nkrudtc The failure of Iridium had a huge impact on the capital markets. ICO went bankrupt Teledesic was redefined and restructured. The 2 1 century starts with a great uncertainty as to whether market driven information services will be successful. The 1 meter resolution systems re just coming online and their impact remains to be seen This phenomenal bubble in the commercial use of space had a concomitant effect on launch The launch market was projected to grow substantially by the end of the nineties with most of the launches being commercial launches. The launch market in the nineties was driven by the development of new launches for the commercial marketplace(the Boeing Delta Ill as well as the Lockheed Launch Vehicle, the Ariane 5, etc. ) All of these arose from the speculation in the commercial marketplace. The US government after a seminal study by Gen. Moorman decided to fund the development of two new types of launch vehicles. An evolved expendable launch vehicle(eelv) to be funded by the air Force and a reusable launch X-vehicle(X-33)through NASA funding. The goal of the EELV was to reduce launch costs by 20-30% and help the USIridium) LEO satellite. This bold venture led to an explosion of new thinking about communications and the uses of space to enable it. The key mindset change was that space infrastructure was seen as critical to providing market drivers information services to everyone. In the early nineties, Hughes started its Direct TV service which used high power GEO birds to provide home users with their own satellite TV stations. This immediately proved to be successful because it offered many more channels at much better quality than cable services. The Iridium announcement set off a huge flurry of interest in both personal communication services as well as broadband information services. Teledesic, backed by Gates and McCaw, was formed and announced it would build a 980 satellite system to provide internet in the sky services and enable worldwide interactive games to be played. Hughes, Lockheed Martin and Loral all countered with announcements of their own systems. Not to be outdone the Europeans announced several of their own systems. In addition to PCS & broadband systems, several companies (Lockheed Martin, Orbital Sciences) announced constellations to provide imaging services from space. The US government decided to adopt a policy that restricted such systems to 1 meter resolution although the technology to do better is well in hand. It also restricted the locations where such pictures could be taken. Thus current policy does not allow imaging of Israel. The 1 meter restriction was felt to balance the national security interests with the ability to build the market. All of this commercial activity was to be driven by the capital markets. By the mid nineties the cumulative amount of capital to be raised was $500 billion to cover all the announced systems. The Wall Street Journal called this the second Apollo era. Through the mid nineties, the companies raised money and started building. Iridium was the first of the big systems out of the block. It launched its service in late 1998. Within a year, it filed for bankruptcy. The service was a technical success and a marketing disaster. Iridium was selling big, bulky handsets for $3000 and charging $3/min. It did offer global service but in high density areas it was inferior to cellular service. Basically the market shifted faster than Iridium could respond. In 1989 there were no small triband phones. In 1999, one could buy a small high quality triband phone that would work in Europe, the US and Japan. It was much cheaper to use than an Iridium phone. Thus a key part of the Iridium market vanished. Iridium could not sell enough handsets to the rest of the global mobile market and declared bankruptcy. The failure of Iridium had a huge impact on the capital markets. ICO went bankrupt, Teledesic was redefined and restructured. The 21st century starts with a great uncertainty as to whether market driven information services will be successful. The 1 meter resolution systems are just coming online and their impact remains to be seen. This phenomenal bubble in the commercial use of space had a concomitant effect on launch. The launch market was projected to grow substantially by the end of the nineties with most of the launches being commercial launches. The launch market in the nineties was driven by the development of new launches for the commercial marketplace (the Boeing Delta III as well as the Lockheed Launch Vehicle, the Ariane 5, etc.). All of these arose from the speculation in the commercial marketplace. The US government after a seminal study by Gen. Moorman decided to fund the development of two new types of launch vehicles. An evolved expendable launch vehicle (EELV) to be funded by the Air Force and a reusable launch X-vehicle (X-33) through NASA funding. The goal of the EELV was to reduce launch costs by 20-30% and help the US