Odd (double?) Iridium flare from Melbourne

[Kugelblitz (Marcus)]

Completely de-railed my exam revision for tonight
Was alerted to an Iridium flare by my phone at around 9pm and rushed outside to image it, and was surprised when (literally) just after it faded, another equally as bright flare occurred near the location of the initial one

From my understanding, satellites don't generally sit that close to one another in orbit. Can someone help make sense of this?

(Apologies for the out of focus image)

It was IRIDIUM 7 [+], if that helps at all.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Marcus,
Guide9 tells me Iridium 7 and Iridium 51 are traveling very close together. They do this in case one sat fails so they can quickly replace it.

[Kugelblitz (Marcus)]

Thanks, never knew they did that with satellites.
Learn something new everyday

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

Had a similar Iridium flare last night here in Wollongong, Heavens Above. com forecast an mag. -6.6 flare at 8.26pm, 26 deg. alt 160 deg. south and being clear skies, went out to watch. as it turned out , it was an double flare event, with the 2nd one only a few seconds after the 1st.
If Heavens Above had said it was an double event I would have set up a camera, as it was quite "specky" to watch.
To cap it off there was also an ISS pass beginning at the same time, but coming from the NW to SE at mag. -3.3 .

Jeff