Gogo Business Aviation’s new Galileo inflight connectivity — which uses Hughes Network Systems’ electronically steerable antenna (ESA) hardware and is powered by Eutelsat OneWeb’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite service — is enjoying strong talkability and momentum in the BizAv market.
During last week’s massive NBAA-BACE show in Las Vegas, Gogo announced that Textron Aviation will install the Gogo Galileo HDX (half-duplex) ESA hardware as a factory option for the Cessna Citation Longitude, Citation Latitude and Citation Ascend business jets.
Textron is the first business aviation OEM to offer the Galileo HDX solution factory-fit, though others are sure to follow suit. Gogo, which recently announced plans to acquire Satcom Direct, is also actively working with its extensive dealer and OEM network to rapidly bring supplemental type certificates (STCs) to market for every business aviation airframe.
Also at NBAA-BACE, on-demand private aviation company Wheels Up reached an agreement with Gogo to add the Galileo HDX system across its fleet, which features a variety of aircraft types including light jets, mids, super-mids and more. Installations are expected to begin by the middle of 2025, as soon as certifications for Wheels Up aircraft are completed.
These wins follow Gogo’s successful flight-testing of Galileo HDX aboard a Bombardier Challenger 300. Reza Rasoulian, SVP of the aviation business unit at Hughes, is incredibly pleased with the test results. Runway Girl Network sat down with Rasoulian at the APEX Global EXPO in Long Beach, where he shared:
It’s very rare that you field a product and it pretty much works and I think that’s a testament not only to the Hughes technological pedigree in electronically steerable antenna systems and complex satellite systems but also bodes extremely well obviously for Gogo Business Aviation and their technical prowess because this was absolutely a collaboration.
Gogo Business Aviation has been a fantastic partner to Hughes. We have been burning the midnight oil together and frankly we’re also on-time, which is also another rarity. We brought this to market together.
They see a fantastic demand, which we’re pleased with. When you design and develop a product and collaborate in this manner, there is always a question of, how is this going to go? And we’re really thrilled with the market impetus around connectivity and the small form factor [of Galileo]. And Gogo has done a great job. They’re marketing wizards and frankly are doing a great job positioning this product, our product, in the market, and we’re excited to see what the future holds.
By nature of the definition, HDX is half-duplex so, within a time slice, the Galileo HDX hardware is either transmitting or receiving. But because it happens so quickly “it’s imperceptible” to the passenger, said Rasoulian.
“So, it’s that same zippy feeling that you get with a Low Earth Orbit constellation; it has just been scaled down. And the performance is still more than adequate for streaming on board, cloud-based applications, doing everything you would theoretically need to do on a business aircraft.”
Gogo’s Galileo FDX (full-duplex) ESA, which is slightly larger and is designed for larger business aircraft, “will do the full performance of the OneWeb constellation. So, I think proportionately you’ll be able to do everything with the HDX and/or the FDX, and it’s really the number of passengers on board, basically, that scales,” said the Hughes executive. The Galileo FDX product will be shipped in the first half of 2025.
At roughly the same time, Hughes, which is an EchoStar company, will bring its own ESA-based, Eutelsat OneWeb LEO-powered inflight connectivity offering to the commercial aviation market, using the same flight-proven technology. Rasoulian reports that the firm has had “very good conversations” with airlines, and that the successful Galileo demo is very helpful in its discussions.
“We were happy to have a successful flight test. That was a first gate, if you will, from a risk reduction perspective and we passed that gate,” he said. “As we prepare for the commercial aviation ESA launch, very similarly we have a bunch of STC activity underway already; we will be flying next year, which is fantastic. Again, I think the market needs a solution from a provider that’s agnostic and open and it’s good because we are in a position to bring that to market in a reasonable timeframe.”
Related Articles:
- Gogo to acquire Satcom Direct, offer integrated LEO-GEO IFC
- Eutelsat OneWeb takes stepwise approach to Gen 2 LEO network
- Gogo edges closer to launch of Eutelsat OneWeb LEO powered Galileo
- One-on-one with Hughes aviation SVP Reza Rasoulian
- Delta, Hughes tout Jupiter connectivity following CRJ200 flight tests
Featured image credited to istock.com/Ceri Breeze
