The new owners of the 66-satellite network, Iridium Satellite LLC, planned to announce today that the system will go live again Friday, almost exactly a year after commercial service was turned off.

Iridium Satellite paid just $25 million to acquire the system, which cost Motorola and other investors more than $5 billion to develop, launched service in late 1998, and slid into bankruptcy court by the following summer, drowning in debt.

(PTI)