Satelles Inc.

Satelles Inc. was founded in 2008 in Reston, Virginia, to develop an alternative positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) service that could operate independently of GPS. The company created the Satellite Time and Location (STL) service, which leverages the Iridium constellation of 66 low Earth orbit satellites at 780 km altitude to broadcast timing and location signals that are up to 1,000 times (30 dB) stronger than GPS signals, enabling operation in GPS-denied environments including indoors and underground.

The STL service provides sub-microsecond timing accuracy and meter-level positioning without requiring an outdoor antenna, making it ideal for critical infrastructure applications such as 5G base station synchronization, data center timing, financial transaction timestamping, and power grid synchronization. The signals are cryptographically authenticated, providing resistance to spoofing and jamming attacks that threaten conventional GNSS systems.

In April 2024, Iridium Communications completed the acquisition of Satelles for approximately $115 million. The STL service was rebranded as Iridium STL, and Iridium continued expanding the product line with chip-scale receivers such as the Iridium PNT ASIC, enabling embedded resilient PNT in end devices. The acquisition positioned Iridium as a leading provider of GNSS-independent timing services for critical infrastructure worldwide.