That's roughly true, but it's sort of a special case; as I recall it, the US Department of Defense had come to depend on Iridium and didn't want to lose service

That's roughly true, but it's sort of a special case; as I recall it, the US Department of Defense had come to depend on Iridium and didn't want to lose service, so they facilitated the orderly bankruptcy and re-emergence of the company, in part by offering an enormous multi-year contract to the successor company.