Business aviation’s connectivity options are expanding substantially, with the low-latency advantages of low earth orbit constellations and a new generation of aircraft antennas for geostationary earth orbit satellites and a range of industry Internet service provider consolidations. After sitting down with connectivity experts at the recent Aircraft Interiors Expo, we round up some of the key news moving the needle for this aviation segment.
The consolidation of connectivity companies is changing the industry’s offerings substantially. With Viasat’s acquisition of Inmarsat closing in 2023, and this year SES’ acquisition of Intelsat (including the former Gogo commercial Ku-band operations), plus Thales’ acquisition of Cobham Aerospace Communications and Get SAT, the fundamentals of the supplier landscape are being reformed.
The evolving range of connectivity providers means big questions for big bizjets
Larger business jets that are supporting connectivity via full-sized radomes — physically in terms of fuselage and financially in terms of a cost-benefit weigh ratio — have new decisions to make. Previous Inmarsat (now Viasat) Global Xpress Ka-band customers need to weigh up the benefit of the additional Viasat regional service options and the extent to which their existing radomes are compatible with that network.
More widely, almost all operators with GEO (geostationary earth orbit) capabilities need to determine how well their installed equipment will work with LEO (low earth orbit) and MEO (medium earth orbit) constellations.
Antenna manufacturer ThinKom is now in a development partnership with Canadian satellite provider Telesat to certify ThinKom’s ThinAir Ka2517 antenna for Telesat’s Lightspeed LEO constellation, which operates over Ka-band.
“ThinKom is keen to extend its position as the proven leader in airborne, multi-constellation, multi-orbit satellite terminal technology,” explains Bill Milroy, ThinKom’s chief technology officer and co-founder. “We bring exactly what it takes, in terms of spectral efficiency, scan volume, and rigorous regulatory compliance, in order to fully unlock the unique constellation characteristics and advantages of the Telesat Lightspeed network. We are indeed eager to see airlines and their passengers benefit from the addition of this high-throughput, low latency global network.”
There are different challenges for LEO networks compared with existing and future GEO services as a result of the positioning and size of the satellites: typically, GEO satellites are larger but nearly 36,000km away in their orbit, while LEO satellites sit under 1000km away but are much smaller. As a result, the trend is that, while LEO provision is substantially lower latency, it tends towards being able to offer lower speed and bandwidth capacity than GEO.
Once the ThinKom-Telesat work is completed, more than 800 existing ThinAir terminals will be able to swiftly choose to use Telesat’s LEO constellation.
“Telesat estimates that its enterprise-class constellation, paired with the Ka2517 antenna, will deliver over 1 Gbps to the aircraft,” representatives for the partnership explain. “Telesat Lightspeed can dynamically allocate multiple-Gbps of capacity to areas with high demand.”
Those areas can be either location-based (such as large cities with strong demand) or route-based (like congested flightpaths).
ThinKom is also working to integrate with SES’ network of GEO and MEO satellites. The company says that its “terminal architecture is able to operate independent transmit and receive beams, allowing the simultaneous use of both GEO and MEO satellites. This hybrid constellation optimises satellite resource capacity and reduces round-trip latency,” including via the use of ThinKom’s patented VICTS [variable inclination continuous transverse stub] phased-array antenna technology.
New options, including LEO-focussed equipment, are coming online — including for smaller jets
Business aviation-focussed Gogo is hard at work to develop its services via the Hughes HDX antenna for LEO connectivity over the now fully deployed Eutelsat OneWeb constellation, and is flight testing the HDX terminal this summer. The certification processes, together with a commercial launch, are planned for later this year, and Gogo expects to make connectivity available to an unprecedentedly wide range of aircraft and missions.
Gogo president and chief operating officer Sergio Aguirre says that “Gogo Galileo HDX stands to revolutionise business aviation inflight connectivity by delivering a solution fit for aircraft of all sizes, especially small jets, which have limited options today, and no broadband options outside North America. We remain on track to deliver this game-changing technology later this year.”
Indeed, the rise of availability and increasing rollouts of low earth orbit constellations is changing the game, with low-impact, low-weight antennas a persuasive option.
Drawing from the commercial world, AirFi is installing its minimally-invasive window antenna to provide Iridium Certus low-earth-orbit, enabling weather-resistant L-band Internet — suitable for most operational uses and perhaps some light business user connectivity like email or browsing only — on Airbus, Boeing, ATR and Embraer aircraft.
AirFi chief executive officer Job Heimerikx highlights “our proposition with LEO, [in which] clients can achieve 90% of the benefits of a full-scale in-flight connectivity service for 10% of the cost.”
AirFi’s IP-protected, patented window-mounted antenna can be installed overnight and means no drilling into the aircraft or indeed extra drag. Of course, there are fewer windows available to start with on a business jet than on even a small airliner, but does swapping one out for an antenna make a good business case?
Elsewhere in L-band news, Thales’ acquisition of segment stalwart Cobham Aerospace Communications is making waves. This former part of the Cobham business makes a range of key blocks within the connectivity technology stack, from antennas and transceivers to L-band satellite connectivity, radio kit and passive antenna systems. Many smaller connected aircraft use L-band because the required antenna and radome are lower in size, drag and weight.
Altogether, operators have never had more choice to get a business aircraft online. The crucial question for them now is to match the many different — and in some cases incompatible or exclusive — elements of the connected aircraft together, from antennas to onboard network backbones to service providers and more.
Author: John Walton
Published: 21st November 2024
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