Iridium-Linked Buoy

An Iridium-linked buoy reports its data through the Iridium satellite constellation, a 66-satellite low-Earth-orbit network giving pole-to-pole coverage. Iridium’s Short Burst Data service moves a few kilobytes per session at low latency, so a buoy can transmit full wave spectra or high-rate sensor records rather than the compressed summaries the older Argos system allowed. Two-way Iridium also lets operators reconfigure sampling remotely. Gliders, profiling floats, drifters, and DART surface buoys have shifted to Iridium for the higher throughput and the global, including high-latitude, reach that geostationary relays lack near the poles.