Track Iridium satellites live

azmth currently tracks 80 Iridium satellites in CelesTrak's active catalogue, as of 14 September 2026. Data from CelesTrak, refreshed every 2 hours.

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Iridium is the global satellite phone, messaging and data network of Iridium Communications, whose filings describe 66 operational satellites in six polar orbital planes of 11, plus in-orbit spares; all of them are Iridium NEXT satellites launched between 2017 and 2023. The globe shows every Iridium NEXT satellite in CelesTrak's active catalogue, named IRIDIUM 100 to IRIDIUM 181, most of them about 778 km up and each circling Earth roughly every 100 minutes. The catalogue count is higher than 66 because it also includes Iridium's in-orbit spares, and some Iridium NEXT satellites fly below the main operational shell.

Also called Iridium NEXT

As of 14 September 2026, Iridium is a global mobile satellite network of 66 operational Iridium NEXT satellites plus in-orbit spares in polar low Earth orbit, run by Iridium Communications Inc. of McLean, Virginia, which signed an agreement on 28 June 2026 to be acquired by Rocket Lab in a deal expected to close in mid-2027.

TL;DR· 15 min read

Iridium is a satellite network for phones, messaging devices, broadband terminals and positioning services, run by Iridium Communications Inc. of McLean, Virginia, with coverage that includes the polar regions. Its Iridium NEXT satellites, launched from January 2017 to May 2023, fly about 778 km up in six polar planes of 11, giving 66 operational satellites, and the last in-orbit spare count Iridium stated, in 2023, was 14. CelesTrak's active catalogue lists 80 Iridium satellites, all Iridium NEXT, a total that includes in-orbit spares as well as the 66 operational satellites. Rocket Lab agreed on 28 June 2026 to buy Iridium, in a deal expected to close in mid-2027.

in CelesTrak's active catalogue now

as of 14 September 2026

operational satellites with in-orbit spares, per Iridium's latest quarterly report

as of 30 June 2026 · source

in-orbit spares, the last number Iridium has stated

as of 30 June 2023 · source

What Iridium is

Iridium is a low-Earth-orbit mobile satellite network that carries voice calls, short messages, broadband data and positioning and timing signals for handheld phones, Internet of Things devices, ships, aircraft and the US military. Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: IRDM), headquartered in McLean, Virginia, describes the network as 66 operational satellites in six polar orbital planes of 11, with in-orbit spares, flying at about 778 km (483 miles) and circling Earth roughly every 100 minutes. The satellites are linked to each other by radio crosslinks, and Iridium says this makes it the only mobile satellite operator offering real-time, low-latency service with full coverage of the polar regions. Every satellite in the operational constellation is an Iridium NEXT satellite, launched between 2017 and 2023 to replace the original constellation built by Motorola and launched from 1997 to 2002.

Iridium's satellites appear in CelesTrak's active catalogue as 80 Iridium NEXT objects, a total that counts in-orbit spares as well as the 66 operational satellites. In azmth's analysis of CelesTrak's orbital elements for 13 September 2026, 67 of them fly in a shell at about 778 km, inclined about 86.4 degrees, split into six planes whose ascending nodes lay near 19.7, 51.4, 253.3, 285.1, 316.6 and 348.3 degrees that day; the plane near 19.7 degrees held 12 satellites and each of the others 11. The other 13 fly lower, between about 629 and 763 km. Eleven of those 13 precess at almost the same rate as one of the six planes and stay lined up with it, consistent with spares held in reserve below every plane, while IRIDIUM 177, and more slowly IRIDIUM 179, are moving between planes. Jonathan McDowell's statistics of 10 September 2026 also count 67 in the operational orbit and 13 drifting. The last spare count Iridium gave, in its report for the quarter ending 30 June 2023, was 14, which with the 66 operational satellites makes 80, the number of Iridium NEXT objects CelesTrak listed on 14 September 2026. That suggests one spare flies in the working shell, though neither Iridium nor McDowell names it, and no Iridium filing reviewed gives a spare count after 2023.

Iridium NEXT, the roughly $3 billion programme that replaced the original satellites, was designed by Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor and integrated by Northrop Grumman, which assembled all 81 satellites on an 18-station assembly line. Each satellite has a mass of 860 kg and, according to Gunter's Space Page, carries a 48-beam L-band phased array for users, Ka-band links to other satellites and to ground gateways, and an Aireon ADS-B receiver for tracking aircraft. SpaceX launched 75 of them on eight Falcon 9 flights from Vandenberg between 14 January 2017 and 11 January 2019; the rockets released them at about 625 km, and each satellite raised itself to the operating orbit and took over from an original satellite one for one, in what Iridium called a 'slot swap'. When the last of those flights launched, Iridium said 9 of the 75 would serve as in-orbit spares and 6 more would stay on the ground as spares, with 66 forming the operational constellation. Five of the ground spares launched on 20 May 2023 on a Falcon 9 that also carried 16 OneWeb satellites, bringing the in-orbit spares to 14, and Iridium, which has no plans to launch the sixth, wrote it off with $37.5 million of accelerated depreciation in the second quarter of 2023.

Iridium Communications signed an agreement on 28 June 2026 to be acquired by Rocket Lab, and the two companies announced the deal the next day at a notional $54.00 a share, made up of $27.00 in cash plus Rocket Lab stock within a collar, giving Iridium an enterprise value of about $8.0 billion. The US antitrust (HSR) waiting period expired on 12 August 2026, two days after the companies applied for Federal Communications Commission consent to the transfer of control, and as of 14 September 2026 Iridium's stockholders were due to vote on the deal at a special meeting on 24 September 2026; completion is expected in mid-2027, subject to the remaining approvals. The deal announcement says the combined company will support the development and deployment of Iridium's next-generation constellation, including direct-to-device service, but gives no satellite count, design, builder or date. Iridium's annual report for 2025 says the company expects its period of lower capital spending to last until at least 2031, and the merger proxy says Iridium's extended management forecast includes spending in fiscal years 2031 to 2035 for expected constellation upgrades. Since the fourth quarter of 2023 Iridium has depreciated its satellites over an estimated useful life of 17.5 years, up from 12.5 years, while Gunter's Space Page gives the Iridium NEXT design life as 10 years, with 15 planned.

Iridium's first generation was designed and built by Motorola, and CelesTrak's catalogue records 95 of its satellites on 22 launches between 5 May 1997 and 20 June 2002, from Vandenberg, Baikonur, Taiyuan and Plesetsk. The original operator, Iridium LLC, began commercial phone service on 1 November 1998, but involuntary bankruptcy petitions were filed against it on 13 August 1999, and it ended commercial service in March 2000. On 11 December 2000 Iridium Satellite LLC, a subsidiary of Iridium Holdings, acquired the satellite assets of Iridium LLC, which was operating in bankruptcy; the investors, led by former Pan Am president Dan Colussy, paid $25 million for a system that Computerworld reported had cost $5 billion to build. The Pentagon backed the rescue with an airtime contract: RCR Wireless reported in December 2000 that it paid $36 million a year for unlimited Defense Department use, and Computerworld described it in March 2001 as a $72 million, two-year contract for about 20,000 government users. Iridium Satellite relaunched voice service on 30 March 2001 over 66 operational satellites plus seven spares, and on 29 September 2009 GHL Acquisition Corp. bought Iridium Holdings and renamed itself Iridium Communications Inc.

Iridium 33, a first-generation Iridium satellite in service, was destroyed on 10 February 2009 at about 16:56 UTC when it collided with Cosmos 2251, a decommissioned Russian satellite, at 790 km over northern Siberia, according to NASA's Orbital Debris Quarterly News; the two met at more than 11 km/s. CelesTrak's conjunction screening service, SOCRATES, had predicted a close approach, but its last report before the collision gave a miss distance of 584 m and ranked the pair 152nd, outside its top-ten list. Iridium said the next day that it expected to move an in-orbit spare into the constellation within 30 days, and Rod Sladen's constellation status page records that Iridium 91 was raised to the operational orbit in early March 2009 to fill the gap. On 14 September 2026 CelesTrak still listed the main body of IRIDIUM 33, in an orbit of 768 by 781 km, with 117 of the 656 catalogued IRIDIUM 33 DEB fragments and 614 of the 1,714 COSMOS 2251 DEB fragments still in orbit.

Iridium flares were brief glints of sunlight from first-generation Iridium satellites, reflected off each satellite's three main mission antennas: aluminium panels about 188 by 86 cm covered in silver-coated Teflon and angled 40 degrees from the body. A flare could reach magnitude -8 and last up to 20 seconds, and because the working satellites' attitude was tightly controlled, flares could be predicted. Iridium NEXT antennas are angled differently and, Spaceflight Now reported in January 2017, are not likely to reflect much sunlight, so the replacement satellites do not produce flares. As the new satellites took over, Iridium deboosted 65 of the originals. It held a 'Final Flarewell' webcast on 5 December 2019, the day deorbiting began for the last one, SV097, according to Rod Sladen's status page, and CelesTrak records that satellite, IRIDIUM 97, as decayed on 27 December 2019. By February 2021, 60 of the deboosted satellites had re-entered, a median of 19 days after their deboost, removing more than 33 tonnes from orbit, and on 14 September 2026 CelesTrak still listed 25 dead first-generation satellites in orbit.

How to find them on the globe

CelesTrak names each Iridium NEXT satellite IRIDIUM followed by a three-digit number, from IRIDIUM 100 to IRIDIUM 181 with no 101 or 127, and its iridium-NEXT element group holds the same satellites; the numbers identify individual satellites and do not show which of the six orbital planes a satellite is in. Dead first-generation satellites still in orbit, which have one- or two-digit names such as IRIDIUM 7 and IRIDIUM 33 (plus IRIDIUM 911, 914 and 920), and debris named IRIDIUM 33 DEB appear only in CelesTrak's full satellite catalogue and are absent from the active catalogue the globe draws on.

Coverage and service

As of 14 September 2026, Iridium sells voice, messaging, broadband and positioning services worldwide through more than 500 partner companies, and it reported 2,627,000 billable subscribers on 30 June 2026: 2,091,000 commercial Internet of Things (IoT) users, 402,000 commercial voice and data users, 16,000 commercial broadband users, and 42,000 voice and data and 76,000 IoT users in the US government. Iridium's IoT service carries two-way short burst data (SBD) between small, low-power modules and host computers, and Iridium Certus broadband, launched on 16 January 2019 as the first new service enabled by Iridium NEXT, offers speeds of up to 704 kbps. Iridium is formally authorised to provide Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) service under a Letter of Compliance that the International Mobile Satellite Organization signed on 19 December 2019 and Iridium announced on 13 January 2020, which made it the second recognised mobile satellite system in the GMDSS and extended coverage to the polar Sea Area A4, and in July 2011 the US Federal Aviation Administration accepted FANS 1/A data link over Iridium for air traffic control communications in oceanic airspace and said it would act to remove restrictions on its use. The US government is Iridium's largest single customer, at 17 per cent of service revenue in the second quarter of 2026; its EMSS contract pays a fixed $110.5 million a year through September 2026, with one six-month extension at the government's option, and Iridium expects a renewal with the US Space Force by March 2027. Aireon's space-based ADS-B aircraft surveillance system, carried on every Iridium NEXT satellite, was declared fully operational by Aireon on 2 April 2019, and Iridium bought the 60.5 per cent of Aireon it did not already own on 2 July 2026. Iridium also sells positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services as protection against GNSS jamming and spoofing. It completed its purchase of the PNT provider Satelles on 1 April 2024 and introduced the service as Iridium Satellite Time and Location, its 2025 annual report refers to the service as Iridium PNT, and an Iridium PNT chip has been commercially available since 14 July 2026. Iridium NTN Direct, a direct-to-device service based on the 3GPP Release 19 standard for NB-IoT over satellite, which Iridium says runs on its existing satellites and L-band spectrum with no new constellation, is in on-air trials, with selected European customers testing it, and Iridium targets commercial availability in the fourth quarter of 2026.

What we know

Operator: Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: IRDM), headquartered in McLean, Virginia as of 29 June 2026 · investor.iridium.com
Pending sale: Merger agreement with Rocket Lab signed on 28 June 2026; completion expected in mid-2027, subject to stockholder and regulatory approvals as of 22 July 2026 · sec.gov
Operational constellation: 66 operational satellites in six orbital planes of 11, in nearly circular polar orbits, plus in-orbit spares as of 31 December 2025 · sec.gov
In-orbit spares (last stated): 14, after five ground spares launched on 20 May 2023; later filings give no number as of 30 June 2023 · sec.gov
Altitude and period: About 778 km (483 miles), one orbit roughly every 100 minutes as of 31 December 2025 · sec.gov
Inclination: 86.39 to 86.40 degrees for the satellites in the operational shell (azmth analysis of CelesTrak elements) as of 13 September 2026 · celestrak.org
Orbit analysis (azmth): In CelesTrak's elements for 13 September 2026, 67 of the 80 Iridium NEXT objects flew in the operational shell at about 778 km in six planes (12 in one, 11 in each of the others) and 13 flew lower, between about 629 and 763 km as of 13 September 2026 · celestrak.org
Independent tracking: Iridium NEXT: 80 launched, 80 in orbit and 80 working, of which 67 are in the operational orbit and 13 drifting (Jonathan McDowell) as of 10 September 2026 · planet4589.org
Satellites built: 81 Iridium NEXT satellites, of which 80 have been launched as of 20 May 2023 · investor.iridium.com
Builders: Thales Alenia Space (system prime contractor) and Northrop Grumman (integrator) as of 11 January 2019 · investor.iridium.com
Spacecraft: ELiTeBus-1000 bus, 860 kg, 48-beam L-band phased array, Ka-band crosslinks and gateway links, Aireon ADS-B receiver; design life 10 years (15 planned) as of 14 September 2026 · space.skyrocket.de
Iridium NEXT launches: Nine Falcon 9 launches from Vandenberg between 14 January 2017 and 20 May 2023: seven carried 10 Iridium NEXT satellites each and two carried 5 as of 14 September 2026 · celestrak.org
First generation: Built by Motorola; 95 satellites on 22 launches between 5 May 1997 and 20 June 2002, of which 25 remain in orbit, all flagged non-operational as of 14 September 2026 · celestrak.org
Billable subscribers: 2,627,000, up from 2,555,000 on 31 March 2026 as of 30 June 2026 · sec.gov
Revenue: $871.7 million in 2025 as of 31 December 2025 · sec.gov
Largest customer: US government, 17 per cent of service revenue in the second quarter of 2026; Iridium expects its EMSS contract with the US Space Force to be renewed by March 2027 as of 22 July 2026 · investor.iridium.com
Hosted payload customers: Aireon LLC, owned by Iridium since 2 July 2026, and L3Harris Technologies as of 22 July 2026 · sec.gov
Satellite useful life (accounting): 17.5 years, extended from 12.5 years in the fourth quarter of 2023 as of 31 December 2025 · sec.gov

Timeline

5 May 1997
The first Iridium satellites launch from Vandenberg, the start of 22 first-generation launches that CelesTrak records up to 20 June 2002. celestrak.org
1 November 1998
Iridium LLC begins commercial phone service, followed by paging on 15 November 1998. sec.gov
13 August 1999
Involuntary bankruptcy petitions are filed against Iridium in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. govinfo.gov
March 2000
Iridium LLC ends commercial service; Nextgov reported on 20 March 2000 that service had stopped the previous Friday. nextgov.com
11 December 2000
Iridium Holdings, through its subsidiary Iridium Satellite LLC, acquires the satellite assets of Iridium LLC, which is operating in bankruptcy. sec.gov
30 March 2001
Iridium Satellite relaunches commercial voice service over 66 operational satellites plus seven spares. computerworld.com
20 June 2002
The last first-generation Iridium launch, from Plesetsk, carries two satellites. celestrak.org
10 February 2009
Iridium 33 is destroyed in a collision with the decommissioned Russian satellite Cosmos 2251 at 790 km over northern Siberia, at about 16:56 UTC. orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov
March 2009
Iridium 91, an in-orbit spare, is raised to the operational orbit to take the place of Iridium 33, according to Rod Sladen's constellation status page. rod.sladen.org.uk
29 September 2009
GHL Acquisition Corp. acquires Iridium Holdings and changes its name to Iridium Communications Inc. sec.gov
11 July 2011
Iridium announces that the US Federal Aviation Administration has accepted FANS 1/A data link over Iridium for air traffic control communications in oceanic airspace. investor.iridium.com
14 January 2017
A Falcon 9 launches the first ten Iridium NEXT satellites from Vandenberg. celestrak.org
22 May 2018
A Falcon 9 launches five Iridium NEXT satellites together with the GRACE-FO satellites of NASA and GFZ. space.skyrocket.de
11 January 2019
The eighth Falcon 9 launch completes the Iridium NEXT campaign: 75 satellites deployed in under two years, 66 to operate and 9 as in-orbit spares, with 6 more kept on the ground. investor.iridium.com
16 January 2019
Iridium Certus broadband begins commercial service, the first new service enabled by Iridium NEXT. investor.iridium.com
2 April 2019
Aireon says its space-based ADS-B system, hosted on Iridium NEXT, is fully operational and in trial use over the North Atlantic. aireon.com
September 2019
Iridium signs the EMSS airtime contract with the US government, worth $738.5 million over a seven-year term ending in September 2026. sec.gov
5 December 2019
Iridium holds its 'Final Flarewell' webcast marking the retirement of the original Iridium system. spacepolicyonline.com
27 December 2019
IRIDIUM 97 (SV097), the last satellite of the original constellation to be deboosted, decays, according to CelesTrak. celestrak.org
13 January 2020
Iridium announces that it is formally authorised to provide GMDSS maritime distress and safety service, under a Letter of Compliance signed by the International Mobile Satellite Organization on 19 December 2019. investor.iridium.com
20 May 2023
A Falcon 9 launches five Iridium NEXT ground spares with 16 OneWeb satellites, bringing Iridium's in-orbit spares to 14. investor.iridium.com
1 April 2024
Iridium completes its purchase of Satelles, a provider of satellite positioning, navigation and timing services, and announces the completion the next day, introducing the service as Iridium Satellite Time and Location. sec.gov
25 September 2024
Iridium announces Iridium NTN Direct after 3GPP accepts its proposal to extend NB-IoT for satellite networks into Release 19 as an official work item. investor.iridium.com
2 December 2025
Iridium announces a five-year US Space Force contract worth up to $85.8 million to upgrade the EMSS Service Center and related facilities. investor.iridium.com
21 January 2026
Iridium announces on-air trials of NTN Direct, including two-way messaging, switched on by a software update to the constellation. investor.iridium.com
28 June 2026
Iridium signs a merger agreement under which Rocket Lab would acquire it. sec.gov
29 June 2026
Rocket Lab and Iridium announce the deal, at a notional $54.00 a share and an enterprise value of about $8.0 billion. investor.iridium.com
2 July 2026
Iridium completes its purchase of the 60.5 per cent of Aireon it did not already own, for about $366.7 million. sec.gov
14 July 2026
Iridium makes its PNT chip commercially available, adding Iridium positioning, navigation and timing to devices as protection against GNSS jamming and spoofing. investor.iridium.com
12 August 2026
The US antitrust (HSR) waiting period for the Rocket Lab deal expires, two days after the companies filed for Federal Communications Commission consent. sec.gov
26 August 2026
Iridium files its definitive merger proxy, setting the stockholder vote on the Rocket Lab deal for 24 September 2026. sec.gov
10 September 2026
Iridium, Deutsche Telekom IoT and Toyota demonstrate a voice message sent over Iridium NTN Direct; Iridium targets commercial availability in the fourth quarter of 2026. investor.iridium.com

Commonly got wrong

(1) The number of Iridium satellites in orbit is often taken to be the number in service. Iridium's filings describe 66 operational satellites plus in-orbit spares, and the last spare count Iridium gave was 14, in its report for the quarter ending 30 June 2023, so CelesTrak's active catalogue, which lists 80 Iridium NEXT objects, includes the spares. Jonathan McDowell (10 September 2026) and azmth's analysis of CelesTrak's elements both find 67 in the operational shell and 13 lower down, which suggests one spare flies among the working satellites; neither Iridium nor McDowell names it, and no Iridium filing reviewed gives a spare count after 2023. McDowell's label 'drifting' also covers satellites that, in azmth's analysis, stay lined up below their planes as spares.
(2) A search for 'IRIDIUM' in CelesTrak's full satellite catalogue returns many objects outside the working constellation. On 14 September 2026 it included 25 dead first-generation satellites in orbit, among them IRIDIUM 7, IRIDIUM 33 and IRIDIUM 911, 914 and 920, which Rod Sladen explains are failed originals first called Iridium 11, 14 and 20 whose numbers passed to replacement satellites (IRIDIUM 921, once Iridium 21, re-entered in February 2025), plus 117 fragments named IRIDIUM 33 DEB. Only the names IRIDIUM 100 to IRIDIUM 181 belong to Iridium NEXT satellites, and those numbers do not follow the orbital planes: in CelesTrak's 13 September 2026 elements, IRIDIUM 105 and 108 from the first launch of January 2017 fly in a different plane from their launch-mates 102, 103, 104, 106, 109, 111, 112 and 114. The numbers 101 and 127 are missing because, according to Gunter's Space Page, 101 was a ground test model that never flew and 127 was renamed 100 before launch after a ground software issue.
(3) Sources disagree on how many first-generation Iridium satellites were launched and remain in orbit. CelesTrak's catalogue lists 95 payloads named IRIDIUM, 25 still in orbit; Jonathan McDowell counts 97 launched and 27 in orbit; Gunter's Space Page gives 98 launched. The sources reviewed do not explain the difference. McDowell also lists one first-generation satellite as working, while CelesTrak flags all 25 in orbit as non-operational and Iridium describes the December 2019 deboost of SV097 as the final active step in deorbiting its original constellation.
(4) Dates and altitudes vary between sources. NASA's Orbital Debris Quarterly News and CelesTrak put the Iridium 33 collision on 10 February 2009 at about 16:56 UTC, with NASA giving 790 km, while Gunter's Space Page dates it 11 February 2009; the precise time of 16:55:59.806 UTC on CelesTrak's collision page is the closest approach predicted by its SOCRATES screening, which the page uses to model the collision. Iridium's annual reports give the operating altitude as about 778 km, where Gunter's Space Page, Spaceflight Now and Iridium LLC's 1998 annual report give 780 km. Several websites give the last Iridium flare as either 5 December 2019, the date of Iridium's 'Final Flarewell' webcast, or 27 December 2019, when CelesTrak records IRIDIUM 97 as decayed.

Sources

Checked on 14 September 2026. Where official statements and independent tracking disagree, both are given. The live count above comes from the catalogue, not from this research.

Frequently asked

How many Iridium satellites are there?

Iridium Communications describes its network as 66 operational satellites, 11 in each of six polar orbital planes, plus in-orbit spares, and the last spare count it gave was 14, in mid-2023. CelesTrak's active catalogue lists 80 Iridium satellites, all of them Iridium NEXT satellites launched between 2017 and 2023, and that total includes the spares. Jonathan McDowell's statistics of 10 September 2026 count 67 in the operational orbit and 13 drifting. A further 25 dead first-generation Iridium satellites were still in orbit on 14 September 2026, and they are not in CelesTrak's active catalogue.

How do I track Iridium satellites?

The tracker button on this page opens azmth's 3D globe showing only the Iridium NEXT satellites in CelesTrak's active catalogue, at their current positions, and the same satellites can be looked up by name, IRIDIUM 100 to IRIDIUM 181, in CelesTrak's catalogue or its iridium-NEXT element group. Iridium's operational satellites fly at about 778 km in six polar orbital planes inclined about 86.4 degrees, each circling Earth roughly every 100 minutes. In CelesTrak's elements for 13 September 2026, 13 Iridium NEXT satellites flew lower, between about 629 and 763 km, and in azmth's analysis most of them are spares held below the working planes.

Can you still see Iridium flares?

The predictable Iridium flares ended with the retirement of the first-generation Iridium satellites that produced them, and the Iridium NEXT satellites that replaced them do not produce flares. The flares, which could reach magnitude -8 and last up to 20 seconds, were sunlight reflected off three silver-coated antennas on each original satellite, whose tightly controlled attitude made them predictable, and Spaceflight Now reported in January 2017 that the Iridium NEXT antennas are angled differently and not likely to reflect much sunlight. Iridium held a 'Final Flarewell' webcast on 5 December 2019 as it retired the original system, and CelesTrak records the last original satellite to be deboosted, IRIDIUM 97, as decayed on 27 December 2019.

Who owns Iridium?

Iridium is owned and operated by Iridium Communications Inc., a Nasdaq-listed company (IRDM) headquartered in McLean, Virginia. On 28 June 2026 Iridium signed an agreement to be acquired by Rocket Lab, announced the next day at a notional $54.00 a share and an enterprise value of about $8.0 billion. As of 14 September 2026 the deal is pending: Iridium's stockholders are due to vote on it at a special meeting on 24 September 2026, and completion is expected in mid-2027, subject to the remaining regulatory approvals.

What happened to Iridium 33?

Iridium 33, a first-generation Iridium satellite in service, was destroyed on 10 February 2009 at about 16:56 UTC when it collided with the decommissioned Russian satellite Cosmos 2251 at 790 km over northern Siberia, according to NASA's Orbital Debris Quarterly News. Iridium said the next day it would move an in-orbit spare into the gap, and Rod Sladen's status page records that Iridium 91 took its place in early March 2009. On 14 September 2026 CelesTrak still listed the main body of Iridium 33, in an orbit of 768 by 781 km, along with 117 IRIDIUM 33 DEB fragments and 614 Cosmos 2251 fragments.

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