Orbcomm

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ORBCOMM, Inc.

Type	Wireless data networking
Founded	1993 by Orbital Sciences and Teleglobe
Headquarters	Fort Lee, NJ
Key people	Chairman: Jerome (Jerry) Eisenberg CFO: Robert G. Costantini CEO: Marc Eisenberg EVP Technology and Operations: John J. Stolte
Industry	Telecommunications
Products	satellite communications and integration services
Revenue	$24.50 million USD (2006)
Employees	98
Website	http://www.orbcomm.com/ http://www.orbcommeurope.com http://www.orbcomm.co.jp/index.html http://www.orbcomm.co.kr/ http://www.orbcomm.co.ma

ORBCOMM (NASDAQ: ORBC) is a company that offers M2M^[1] global asset monitoring and messaging services from its constellation of 29 LEO communications satellites orbiting at 775 km. Like its voice-centric competitors Iridium and Globalstar, it filed for Chapter 11 protection, in September, 2000. ORBCOMM issued a public offering of stock in November 2006. ^[2] The company sold 9.23 million shares of common stock.

In 2004 Orbcomm struck a deal with the controversial VeriChip, a company that specialises in producing implantable RFIDs for use in humans. The plan was to produce one that could track its position via GPS and report its position using the Orbcomm constellation, but has since gone quiet and no mention of it can be found on the Orbcomm website.^[3]

[edit] Satellites

A stack of 8 ORBCOMM Microsats are mated to their Pegasus launch vehicle in its final assembly stage

Each satellite weighs 42 kg (92 lb). Two disc-shaped solar panels articulate in 1-axis to track the sun and provide 160 watts of power. Communication with subscriber units is done using SDPSK modulation at 4800 bit/s for the downlink and 2400 bit/s for the uplink.

Each satellite has a 56 kbit/s backhaul that utilises the popular TDMA multiplexing scheme and QPSK modulation.^[4]. In the continental US, ORBCOMM is committed to relaying 90% of the text messages within 6 minutes. With the current constellation of ORBCOMM satellites, there is likely to be a satellite within range of almost any spot on Earth at any time of the day or night. Every satellite has an on-board GPS receiver for positioning.

On 19 June 2008 a Cosmos-3M rocket launched six additional Orbcomm satellites.^[5] These satellites included a secondary AIS payload.^[6]

On 3 September 2009 a deal was announced between ORBCOMM and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to launch 18 second generation satellites on SpaceX's Falcon 1e rocket. These spacecraft are due to launch between 2010 and 2014.^[7]

[edit] Services

ORBCOMM provides satellite data services, As of August 18, 2009, ORBCOMM reported 500,000 billable subscriber communicators on the company's U.S.-based gateway control center. ORBCOMM has control centers in the United States, Brazil, Japan, and Korea, as well as U.S. ground stations in New York, Georgia, Arizona, and Washington State, and international ground stations in Curacao, Italy, Australia, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Argentina, Morocco, Japan, Korea, and Malaysia. Plans for additional ground station locations are under way.

ORBCOMM services can be integrated with business applications. Customer data can be retrieved or auto-forwarded via SMTP or HTTP/XML feed directly over the Internet or through a dedicated link.^[8]

[edit] Hardware

Many different devices are available for connecting to the Orbcomm networks, most of them being simple RS-232 modules with an antenna and a power supply however there are more advanced ones available that have a simple programmable computer and GPS built in. Such modules are generally used for asset tracking. Very basic transceivers cost around the $150 mark while others can cost over $400

[edit] Digi International SatCom Gateways & Modules

Digi International Digi International is making wireless M2M easy by developing reliable products and solutions to connect and securely manage local or remote electronic devices over the network or via the Web. Digi offers the highest levels of performance, flexibility and quality, with a satellite product line ranging from simple modules to sophisticated multi-mode gateways. Satellite Products:
-m10 - Miniature Satellite Module
-ConnectPort X5 - Rugged Wireless PAN to IP Gateway
-m100 - Programmable Smart Modem with GPS
-m200 - Dual-mode Telematics Platform
-RTU - Fixed Site Remote Telemetry Unit

[edit] Quake Global ORBCOMM Modem Products

Quake Global was formed in 1998 and has produced the majority of ORBCOMM Communicators with approximately 300,000 built by 2009. Quake is constantly bringing new technology and better performance to the market as exhibited by the introduction of the Q4000 product with GSM/GPRS, GPS and ORBCOMM so your data can be delivered by the most cost efficient network regardless of the location of the asset you are monitoring.
-Q1000 - The most compact ORBCOMM modem
-Q1200SG - A programmable ORBCOMM modem
-Q1200SG - A programmable ORBCOMM modem
-Q1400 - A programmable modem with internal GPS
-Q2000 - A programmable modem with internal GPS, CAN Bus, Digital and Analog I/O
-Q4000 - A dual mode (GSM/GPRS & ORBCOMM modem with internal GPS, CAN Bus J1739, Digital and Analog I/O

[edit] Stellar DS100 and DS300

In 2005, Stellar Satellite Communicationsreleased two Orbcomm Communicators...
-DS100 - a compact Orbcomm modem
-DS300 - a rugged Orbcomm modem that also has GPS and an Atmel_AVR processor (Atmega128L equipped with 128K of flash memory, 4K of RAM and 4K of EEPROM) for 3rd party embedded software. Atmega128L
Both the DS100 and DS300 are manufactured by Delphi Corporation.

[edit] Magellan GSC 100

In 1998 Magellan released a GPS and email device called the GSC 100 that used the Orbcomm network for sending and receiving emails. A basic package for $50 a month would buy 30,000 characters of outgoing emails^[9]. The Magellan GSC 100 communicator is no longer in production.

[edit] See also

• Globalstar
• ICO Global Communications
• Inmarsat
• Iridium Satellite LLC
• O3b
• Solaris Mobile
• SkyTerra
• SkyWave Mobile Communications
• Satellite phone
• TerreStar Corporation

[edit] Notes

[edit] Sources

• Orbcomm at Encyclopedia Astronautica