...Thales Alenia Space to provide satellite command decryption capabilities for the Iridium NEXT space program, which is planned to start launching in 2015. The Iridium NEXT constellation will comprise 66 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites connected by crosslinks, with an additional six in-orbit spares and nine spares available on the ground. L-3 TW’s Space Systems group will supply multiple command decryptor units that, when installed on the Iridium NEXT satellites, will decrypt the command signals from the ground to various functions of each satellite.
