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To: Dragonfly who wrote (2329)	3/24/1998 6:19:00 PM
From: Larry L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

Dragonfly: The launch of the first five Iridium satellites was delayed from mid-January until May due to the failure of a Delta II launch vehicle carrying another satellite. Should there be a launch failure of a vehicle that will carry Globalstar satellites after Iridium has its full constellation up it would be quite disastrous. If there is a failure that delays inception of service for both Iridium and Globalstar then you reduce the lead time over Ellipso and the others.

To: Dragonfly who wrote (2329)	3/25/1998 9:19:00 PM
From: Eduardo Fisher	Respond to of 10852

Re: Potential loss of 24 satellites: It's been a while since I worked on the G* program at SS/L, so my information may not be the latest and greatest, but as I recall, the original contract was for 56 G* satellites, with 48 needed for a full constellation. Subsequent to that, G* ordered an additional 8 satellites from SS/L. This put the spare total at 16. I have no idea whether G* has ordered any more spares at this time. If no more spares are on order, G* can easily recover from the loss of one Zenit. However, you cannot assume that a build rate of 4 per month could be maintained beyond FM 64 if the contract is not already underway. These satellites are built over a long period of time, even though several may be completed in one month. They can't just fire up the assembly line and spit out a few more. The lead times are too great. Eduardo