Iridium Communications Inc. is a company, based in McLean, Virginia, United States which operates the Iridium satellite constellation, a system of 66 active satellites used for worldwide voice and data communication from hand-heldsatellite phones and other transceiver units. The Iridium network is unique in that it covers the whole Earth, including poles, oceans and airways. The company derives its name from the chemical element iridium. The number of satellites projected in the early stages of planning was 77, the atomic number of iridium, evoking the metaphor of 77 electrons orbiting the nucleus.

The Iridium satellite constellation is a large group of satellites providing voice and data coverage to satellite phones, pagers and integrated transceivers over Earth's entire surface. The company Iridium Communications Inc. owns and operates the constellation and sells equipment and access to its services.

The constellation operates 66 active satellites in orbit to complete its constellation and additional spare satellites are kept in-orbit to serve in case of failure. Satellites are in low Earth orbit at a height of approximately 485 mi (781 km) and inclination of 86.4°. Orbital velocity of the satellites is approximately 17,000 mph (27,000 km/h). Satellites communicate with neighboring satellites via K_a band inter-satellite links. Each satellite can have four inter-satellite links: two to neighbors fore and aft in the same orbital plane, and two to satellites in neighboring planes to either side. The satellites orbit from pole to pole with an orbit of roughly 100 minutes. This design means that there is excellent satellite visibility and service coverage at the North and South poles, where there are few customers. The over-the-pole orbital design produces "seams" where satellites in counter-rotating planes next to one another are traveling in opposite directions. Cross-seam inter-satellite link hand-offs would have to happen very rapidly and cope with large Doppler shifts; therefore, Iridium supports inter-satellite links only between satellites orbiting in the same direction.

HE Space Operations is a privately-owned company, operating internationally withoffices in the Netherlands, Germany and the USA.  HE Space Operations is specialised in personnel recruitment with its focus exclusively on space agencies and the space industry. 

Hughes Space and Communications Company was formed as a subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft in 1961 following the merger of the company's Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division. 

This division built the world's first geosynchronous communications satellite, Syncom, in 1963 and followed it closely with the first geosynchronous weather satellite, ATS-1, in 1966. Later that year their Surveyor 1 made the first soft landing on the Moon as part of the lead-up to the moon landings in Project Apollo. Hughes also built Pioneer Venus in 1978, which performed the first extensive radar mapping of Venus, and the Galileo probe that flew to Jupiter in the 1990s. The company built nearly 40 percent of commercial satellites in service worldwide in 2000.

in 2000, Hughes Space and Communications Company became part of Boeing Satellite Systems.

XIPS is a commercial electron bombardment thruster (also known as an electrostatic ion thruster) – a form ion propulsion – that is a product of Hughes Space and Communications Company, which, in 2000, became part of Boeing Satellite Systems.

XIPS (pronounced "zips") employs the heavy inert gas xenon as a propellant. It was first used operationally aboard the PAS-5 (PanAmSat-5) communications satellite in 1997 and has since been fitted to many other geosynchronous satellites for use primarily in station-keeping. In a XIPS, xenon atoms are injected into an ionization chamber and ionized by electron bombardment. The propellant is then electrostatically accelerated through a series of biased grids.  Ions, ejected by XIPS, travel in a stream at a speed of 30 km/s (62,900 mph), nearly 10 times that of a conventional chemical thruster. The high efficiency of the system leads to a reduction in propellant mass of up to 90% for a satellite designed for 12–15 years operation.

For example on a XIPS equipped Boeing 702 satellite, four 25-cm thrusters provide economical station keeping, needing only 5 kg of fuel per year. Boeing asserts that this is "a fraction of what bipropellant or arcjet systems consume". Boeing further asserts, that a XIPS can be used for final orbit insertion and has orders( source: Wikipedia, Boeing_702 )  for spacecraft utilizing only ion thrusters. This conserves even more payload mass, as compared to using an on-board liquid apogee engine.

The Boeing 702 satellite is a family of geostationnary satellites designed and manufactured by the company Boeing.

Its design requirements include lower cost and high reliability. It offers a broad spectrum of modularity. A primary example is payload/bus integration. After the payload is tailored to customer specifications, the payload module mounts to the common bus module at only four locations and with only six electrical connectors. This design simplicity confers advantages. First, nonrecurring program costs are reduced, because the bus does not need to be changed for every payload, and payloads can be freely tailored without affecting the bus. Second, the design permits faster parallel bus and payload processing. This leads to the third advantage: a short production schedule.

Tiangong-1 is China's first space laboratory module, an experimental testbed to demonstrate the rendezvous and docking capabilities needed to support a space station complex. Launched unmanned aboard a Long March 2F/G rocket on 29 September 2011, it is part of the Tiangong program, which aims to place a larger, modular station into orbit by 2020. Tiangong-1 will be deorbited in 2013, and replaced over the following decade by the larger Tiangong-2 and Tiangong-3 modules.

Tiangong-1 will be visited by a series of Shenzhou spacecraft during its two-year operational lifetime. The first of these, the unmanned Shenzhou 8, successfully docked with the module in November 2011; the manned Shenzhou 9 mission is expected to launch to Tiangong-1 in June 2012.

The  Boeing 601 satellite is a body-stabilized geostationary satellite. 

The Boeing 601 was introduced in 1987 to meet anticipated requirements for high-power, multiple-payload satellites for such applications as direct television broadcasting to small receiving antennas, very small aperture terminals for private business networks, and mobile communications. The basic configuration features as many as 48 transponders and offers up to 4,800 watts.

A more powerful version, the Boeing 601HP, made its debut in 1995. The HP versions can carry payloads twice as powerful as the classic Boeing 601 models, through such innovations as gallium arsenide solar cells, advanced battery technology, and an optional xenon ion propulsion system. The 601HP features as many as 60 transponders and provides up to 10,000 watts.

Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) is an Operating Division of the Boeing Company responsible for defense and aerospace products and services. It was formerly known as Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS). BDS combines manned and unmanned airborne capabilities, intelligence and security systems, communications architectures and extensive large-scale integration expertise across several diverse business areas.

BDS makes Boeing the third largest defense contractor in the world and is responsible for 51% of the company's income in 2008. BDS is based in Berkeley, Missouri, near the city of St. Louis. 

The National Space Society (NSS) is an American independent, educational, grassroots, non-profit organization dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization.  Founded as the National Space Institute (1974) and L5 Society (1975), which merged to form NSS in 1987 (seemerger proclamation), NSS is widely acknowledged as the preeminent citizen's voice on space. 

NSS has over 12 thousand members (and more supporters) and over 50 chapters in the United States and around the world.  The society also publishes Ad Astra magazine, an award-winning periodical chronicling the important developments in space.