Flight passengers will soon be able to connect to their families and colleagues on Earth via low-orbit telecommunications satellites.
Speeds will be comparable to those at home – up to 195Mbps – substantially boosting the service currently provided by geostationary satellites.
On 12 March, communications company OneWeb signed an agreement to deliver Wi-Fi on aircraft with SatixFy, a British manufacturer of electronic components.
The companies are targeting 2022 for certification and flight testing.
They will develop in-flight connectivity terminals that will work over OneWeb’s constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, as well as on geostationary satellite networks.
OneWeb currently has 110 satellites in orbit but foresees a constellation of about 650.
The terminals will use electronically steered multi-beam antenna technologies to provide multi-beam capability and operate simultaneously via many different satellites.
The terminals use SatixFy’s state-of-the-art application-specific integrated circuit chip set, developed with the support of the UK Space Agency through ESA’s programme of Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES).