Starlink Casts A Shadow Over Rival Connectivity Providers

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An upstart provider of inflight connectivity to business aviation is not listed as an exhibitor at the European Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (EBACE) taking place in Geneva May 28-30, but it will be casting a shadow over the competition from low Earth orbit. Starlink, a division of SpaceX, is fast emerging as the office-in-the-sky choice for U.S. operators of both long-range, large-cabin business jets and King Air turboprops. The enterprise is massively helped by its parent company, which had peppered space with more than 6,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites as of May and created an electronically steered phased array antenna to connect with them.

Competing connectivity providers including Gogo Business Aviation, Satcom Direct and Viasat are developing their own electronically steered antennas to succeed bulkier mechanically steered assemblies. Gogo and partner Hughes Network Systems are readying FDX and smaller HDX flat-panel electronically steered antennas to connect with the Eutelsat OneWeb constellation of 630-plus LEO satellites positioned at 1,200 km (745 mi.) above the Earth (two times higher than Starlink’s at 550 km). In April, Gogo announced a partnership with Germany’s Atlas Air Group to develop the first European supplemental type certificates (STC) to install the HDX antenna on the Embraer Phenom 300 and Cessna CitationJets.

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