Iridium sees an opportunity to ‘disrupt the status quo’ in aviation now that its next-generation Certus satcom service is undergoing flight trials to support aircraft safety services and its joint venture partner Aireon is pursuing a space-based VHF initiative that will relieve VHF congestion using satellite links.

The L-band Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite operator’s legacy service currently supports controller-to-pilot data links and other cockpit communications on over 60,000 aircraft in the world fleet, while its Aireon JV with air navigation service providers (ANSPs) powers a global space-based ADS-B flight tracking service.

But Iridium’s work to ensure that next-gen Certus is approved by the Federal Aviation Administration for aircraft safety services — an effort that was stymied by the supply chain crunch created by Covid — recently took a significant step forward: several aircraft are now fitted with the requisite avionics and participating in flight trials to glean the necessary data.

With flight trials underway, “now the avionics suppliers who have built those solutions can start talking to the Boeings and Airbus’ about getting those installed certainly in 2027 and 2028 into a lot of vehicles,” Iridium CEO Matthew Desch said during an earnings conference call to report a net profit of $114.4 million for 2025, up from the $112.8 million posted in 2024.

Once this months-long exercise ends, Iridium expects to receive final clearance from the FAA for Certus to support FANS-1/A, the Future Air Navigation System, which enables direct datalink communications between pilots and air traffic control — and is a necessity over oceans.

The timeline for seeing Certus equipped across Airbus and Boeing types could be further accelerated if Iridium were to “provide more data through those terminals at lesser expense,” Desch suggested, whilst demurring on specifics due to competitive reasons. Iridium’s so-called Certus AvSafety product will compete with Viasat’s (formerly Inmarsat’s) L-band geostationary (GEO) satellite-based SwiftBroadband-Safety product.

Additionally, “we could maybe take traffic back from the terrestrial network,” Desch said in apparent reference to Aireon’s space-based VHF initiative, which aims to enable pilots to use existing VHF radios to communicate with ATC over Iridium’s L-band links.

Aireon and a $1B-plus addressable market

Indeed, Iridium’s long-term relationship with air navigation service providers — as part of the Aireon JV — represents a “key piece” of the McLean, Virginia-based company’s plan to greatly expand its footprint in the aviation safety market, Desch said, especially as the market “evolves from sending safety and operational data over ground-based VHF towers with satellite as a backup to sending all data more cost effectively and efficiently over satellite.”

Every satellite in Iridium’s 66-satellite NEXT LEO constellation carries Aireon’s current payload, a space-based ADS-B receiver that monitors aircraft in real-time. “With the expanding aircraft fleet and the airlines’ expanding needs for real-time information from those fleets, we believe we can offer a compelling value proposition using our network today and then expand in the future with space-based VHF in a follow-on network,” said Desch, adding:

They [Aireon] are a growth engine for us into the future, especially as they continue to expand their air traffic surveillance services to more ANSPs and market their unique and powerful data set to more industry data applications. Together with some additional investment, we think our work with Aireon could serve a $1 billion-plus addressable market, leveraging our unique fully global network.

Elsewhere in the aviation ecosystem, Iridium is actively working to evolve standards for Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) which “will be a big market in the coming years,” Desch noted.

Disrupting the status quo in aviation is one of four key agenda items that Iridium is pursuing to expand its addressable markets and drive faster growth for the company. The others are: narrowband IoT expansion; building on Iridium’s positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) service — which, incidentally, might ultimately be integrated into aero satcom solutions to complement and protect GPS from spoofing; and bolstering its national security work with the U.S. government, as underscored by the recent revelation that Iridium is involved with the multi-layer missile defense project known as Golden Dome.

Meanwhile, as it drives growth across these verticals, Iridium’s L-band MSS spectrum is also in the spotlight, with Desch noting that “clean, globally coordinated spectrum has increased in value” especially given the excitement around D2D, direct-to-device service. “[W]e will not rule out future business alliances that leverage our unique spectrum real estate, particularly if they offer incremental value to shareholders.”

But for RGN readers, the aviation opportunity is clear. “We think that we’re only getting a very small part of a much bigger market, and we think that we could go after a bigger part of the market,” the Iridium CEO declared.

Related Articles:

• Aireon sees opportunity to aid FAA in ATC modernization
• In conversation with the Mobile Satellite Services Association (MSSA)
• Iridium VAMs explore integrating PNT service with avionics
• Iridium plans Certus safety flight trials aboard 767, 777 and 737
• GEO satellite outage speaks to the value of Iridium LEO mesh network

Featured image credited to Jason Rabinowitz