Liang Hangyu was born on September 1, 1997.

On that day, Liang Tian was not by his side.

It's not that Liang Tian is a particularly irresponsible father.

Liang Tian has a series of plans to welcome new life.

Being a father for the first time is so exciting.

However, Liang Hangyu was ten days ahead of the expected delivery date.

This also caught Liang Tian, who was on a mission at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, off guard.

He originally wanted to rush back to accompany his wife to give birth after the mission.

Liang Tian said that when Liang Hangyu was born, it was a time when our country's aerospace was developing rapidly.

Eleven days before Liang Hangyu was born, the success of [Mabuhai 1] marked the beginning of China's aerospace and the resumption of international commercial launches.

After that, the issue of international commercial insurance affecting Mabuhai 1 will no longer be a stumbling block to China's international commercial space launch.

However, aerospace is cutting-edge technology, and technology is changing with each passing day

By this time, a rocket launch, the light energy to send a satellite into the sky, is no longer enough.

Global satellite launch technology has entered the era of killing multiple satellites with one stone.

One arrow with multiple stars happens to be Liang Tian's research direction in the Shanghai Eighth Academy of Aerospace.

From 1990 as a special truck driver for [Asia One], to 1997, as a scientific researcher, he personally participated in the launch of two Iridium simulants of Motorola.

Astronaut Liang Tian spent more than seven years.

He was only a very junior scientist at the time, and it was not up to him to decide when Iridium would be launched.

The first is that Liang Tian had to be present for this launch, and the second is that Liang Hangyu was ten days ahead of the expected delivery date, and the two reasons combined caused Liang Tian to be unable to see Liang Hangyu born with his own eyes.

At the stage of rapid development of China's aerospace, Liang Tian is also growing rapidly.

From the time he was born, I don't know how, but whenever it is an important moment for Liang Hangyu, Liang Tian always has a special situation where there is no way to leave his post.

The lack of father's love accompanied Liang Hangyu's growth throughout the process.

When Liang Hangyu was young, he admired Liang Tian very much.

It's a little bigger, because of the disappointment after the expectation again and again, there is a bit of a gap between Liang Hangyu and Liang Tian.

It's not that the father-son relationship is bad.

No matter what, Liang Hangyu is also a son inheriting his father's business, starting from college, he has studied aerospace-related majors.

But it's certainly not the kind of intimate father-son relationship that gets along like friends.

After the successful launch of the two Iridium simulators, the official Iridium will be launched.

From the test to the official launch, there are countless problems that need to be solved.

missed Liang Hangyu's birth, and Liang Tian thought about holding a 100-day banquet for him.

Liang Tian worked overtime and worked hard to engage in scientific research.

The interval between the test and the official launch of Motorola Iridium is almost 100 days.

98 days to be exact.

According to this time, Liang Tian can catch up with the 100-day banquet.

But there is a summary report after the launch.

Motorola asked us to launch more than just two Iridium.

There were six in the first contract, and because researchers like Liang Tian solved the problem well enough, each Iridium star was sent accurately, and more were signed later.

The Iridium project has a very big impact on Liang Tian.

Being able to participate in the Iridium program is not just about launching satellites for Liang Tian.

For Liang Tian, this was an eye-opening opportunity, and it also made him understand that the design of any plan must conform to the times.

This adaptation, lag is not good, and advance is not good.

Motorola is a mobile phone company that, in its heyday, was only matched by another giant, Nokia.

Many of the generation that grew up with smartphones have not heard of these two brands.

These two giants did not develop well later, and it is difficult to say that they are brothers.

The reason why the "brothers" did not develop well is completely opposite.

Nokia didn't develop well because it was too conservative to keep up with the era of smartphones.

But anyway, I'm still slowly trying to adapt.

Motorola, on the other hand, went bankrupt before the advent of the smartphone era.

The cause of bankruptcy is that it is too far ahead.

And this is ahead of the curve, and it is very specific to the Iridium project.

In terms of the plan itself, the Iridium project, which was proposed by Motorola in 1987 and put into practice in the 90s of the last century, is actually a very remarkable and revolutionary plan.

What is this project for?

The Iridium atom has 77 electrons, and the Iridium project, as the name suggests, is to launch 77 satellites to form a near-Earth satellite communication constellation, allowing mankind to enter the era of mobile satellite communications.

To put it more colloquially, it is to use a mobile phone to make a satellite call.

Doesn't it sound a bit like a cutting-edge phone from the 2020s?

From the time humans had mobile phones until the advent of cutting-edge mobile phones in the mid-2020s, mobile communications were completely dependent on base stations.

In the 2020s, base stations have covered most of the area, except for particularly remote places.

At this time, having a mobile phone that can make satellite calls is more for dealing with extreme situations.

From the very beginning, the Iridium project was not thinking about extreme cases, but about absolute cases.

In 1987, when Motorola proposed this plan, there were still few base stations on the earth, and the area that mobile phone communication could cover was also limited.

The Iridium program aims to fundamentally solve the problem of base station coverage.

The main feature is a corner where you can see the sky, and you can make calls with your mobile phone.

If Iridium in the 90s had succeeded, the time for humans to make satellite calls with their mobile phones would have been at least 30 years earlier.

Iridium was later actually launched with 66 cells, 11 fewer than originally planned.

The launch of 66 Iridium satellites ended in May 1998.

On November 1 of the same year, Motorola officially launched Iridium's global service.

Motorola has spent ten years in space crazy about deploying stars, and communication companies all over the world are frantically building base stations.

By the time Iridium can be officially put into use, terrestrial mobile communications have covered most areas of most countries very stably.

This also made Motorola, which was "high and low", unable to obtain the expected stable customers after Iridium was put into use.

Just three and a half months into operation, Motorola announced that if there was no buyer to buy Iridium and make additional investment, Iridium's services would be terminated.

Motorola made the announcement on March 15, 1999, and the service was out of service at the last second on March 17.

You can see how bad the situation was at that time.

It took 11 years to prepare and three and a half months to use.

The Iridium program cost Motorola $5 billion.

This also made Motorola's bankruptcy the largest in the history of the United States at that time.