Satnews Daily
September 3rd, 2009

ORBCOMM Will Have Multiple SpaceX Moments Ahead...


ORBCOMM homepage banner ORBCOMM Inc. (Nasdaq: ORBC) and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) announce they have reached an agreement for SpaceX to launch 18 ORBCOMM Generation 2 (OG2) satellites to begin as early as the fourth quarter of 2010 through 2014. SpaceX will deliver ORBCOMM's 2G satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) for the purpose of supporting ORBCOMM's existing constellation of satellites, adding new features, and growing its global Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Automatic Identification System (AIS) offerings. Each new satellite will be equipped with an enhanced communication payload designed to increase subscriber capacity for M2M communication up to 12x over the current satellite constellation, increase message sizes, and include AIS detection capability. SpaceX plans to launch these satellites on multiple Falcon 1e launch vehicles, an enhanced version of SpaceX's Falcon 1 launch vehicle. Most recently, Falcon 1 successfully delivered the RazakSAT satellite to orbit for ATSB of Malaysia. Designed from the ground up by SpaceX, the Falcon 1e has upgraded propulsion, structures and avionics systems in order to further improve reliability and mass-to-orbit capability.