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In the nineties, Iridium spent $5 billion of Motorolas and other investors money on developing and deploying a revolutionary satellite phone system: 72 satellites were put into Low Earth Orbit through 15 flawless rocket launches in a time-span of a little over a year in 1997-1998. The system was brilliant and worked exactly as designed. The only problem was that the design hadn’t taken into account the realities of Planet Earth below.

Iridium became one of the most spectacular business failures ever seen. The bankruptcy hit in 1999, just a few months after this ad ran, and there was even crazy talk about sending the satellites head first into the atmosphere where they would burn up. In the end it was decided not to do that, and instead sell the assets to a group of investors for a mere $25 million. Compare that to the $5 billion invested.

In the years since the restructure of Iridium, the new owners have focused on the part of the business that actually made sense: Providing sat-phone coverage not to consumers, but to rescue-workers, humanitarian organizations, military, security, shipping-companies etc. And now, they’ve launched a bold new plan: Iridium NEXT.