Celestial Phenomena: Constellations

[Calculus]

I meant Satellite Constellations!
There is 2 images of the Globalstar Telecom Constellation and Iridium Telecom Constellation. Notice the different features (number, planes, altitude).


http://ennui.shatters.net/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Calculus&id=GlobalStar_Constellation

http://ennui.shatters.net/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Calculus&id=Iridium_Constellation

BTW: what should have been the name of the Iridium constellation ?

[timcrews]

Hey:

I was involved with writing the software on the IRIDIUM (note: officially all caps) satellites. Oooh, I bet you really want to hear about the Shlaer-Mellor object-oriented architecture framework! No?

Well, anyway, the number of satellites to be included in the constellation jumped around during the early design phases. The number of active satellites in the as-designed system ended up being 66. (The spares were never counted towards the total in terms of thinking of the corresponding element name.) But this happened long after the trademark for IRIDIUM had been obtained.

The joke was, the constellation should have been named Dysprosium because that is the element with an atomic number of 66. Unfortunately, "Dysprosium" means "hard to get at" or something like that, and it was thought that the competition might have too much fun with a name that means "hard to get at". Believe me, we engineers spent many lunch hours out in the parking lot in Chandler, Arizona with pre-production handsets, swearing that "hard to get at" might have been the better choice of names. Eventually, though all the kinks got worked out of the system. (Shame about the "biggest commercial failure in world history" thing, though. -- Not the engineers' fault!)

Tim Crews

[Calculus]

Hey:

I was involved with writing the software on the IRIDIUM (note: officially all caps) satellites. Oooh, I bet you really want to hear about the Shlaer-Mellor object-oriented architecture framework! No?

Well, anyway, the number of satellites to be included in the constellation jumped around during the early design phases. The number of active satellites in the as-designed system ended up being 66. (The spares were never counted towards the total in terms of thinking of the corresponding element name.) But this happened long after the trademark for IRIDIUM had been obtained.

The joke was, the constellation should have been named Dysprosium because that is the element with an atomic number of 66. Unfortunately, "Dysprosium" means "hard to get at" or something like that, and it was thought that the competition might have too much fun with a name that means "hard to get at". Believe me, we engineers spent many lunch hours out in the parking lot in Chandler, Arizona with pre-production handsets, swearing that "hard to get at" might have been the better choice of names. Eventually, though all the kinks got worked out of the system. (Shame about the "biggest commercial failure in world history" thing, though. :oops: -- Not the engineers' fault!)

Tim Crews

Yes, I thought people would want to hear about that story.