Intelsat’s multi-orbit electronically steered antenna (ESA)-based inflight connectivity hardware has been installed on over 100 aircraft, and most have seen both the geostationary (GEO) satellite service and Eutelast OneWeb Low Earth Orbit (LEO) service switched on.
Whilst GEO remains an important component of the solution, including to address geopolitical concerns, low-latency LEO is the predominant service being used, with an “easy 190 Mbps at sub 100 milliseconds latency off of OneWeb” being consistently achieved, Intelsat head of commercial aviation Dave Bijur revealed to Runway Girl Network in advance of this week’s SATELLITE 2025 conference and exhibition in Washington D.C.
“We now have over 100 airplanes installed with the ESA, so we’ve made great progress in that regard and we’re using OneWeb live. We’re in service. This is not experimental. This is not testing. It’s full-blown and it’s performing amazingly well. I’ve been flying on it. It’s game-changing is the simple way to put it,” said Bijur.
Referring to Eutelsat Group, which owns the Eutelsat OneWeb Ku-band LEO constellation, he added: “I think they’ve done a great job.”
Intelsat hasn’t made a ton of noise about its customers’ aircraft equipage achievements because, said Bijur, “it’s more of an airline story to tell. And I think they want to reach some critical mass because, you know, some of these airlines have lots and lots of airplanes. So, they’ve been quietly getting to the job and doing a great job.”
The aircraft are being installed “in less than two days at this point”, he revealed, “in several locations around the country.” Intelsat counts Air Canada, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines among is customers for multi-orbit IFC, with each carrier fitting their regional jets. Aerolíneas Argentinas and Japan Airlines are also customers, the latter for linefit installs at Boeing.
The Intelsat ESA’s multi-orbit architecture, inclusive of GEO, is important for a number of reasons: GEO addresses congested hub areas as well as geopolitical concerns. “I think there’s a huge market in particular when you think about airlines that overfly such geopolitical hotspots, let’s say Russia, let’s say China, you kind of need GEO/LEO,” noted Bijur.
Intelsat also has a large installed fleet of its 2Ku product, which is based on the ThinKom Solutions Ku3030 VICTS product and presently talks to GEO satellites. But as airlines warm to a two-antenna paradigm — see Hughes Network Systems’ new arrangement with Delta Air lines to bring the Hughes Fusion product to A350s, A321neos and the carrier’s entire 717 fleet — Bijur reckons its 2Ku customers could benefit from Eutelsat OneWeb LEO service if Intelsat simply adds an electronically steered antenna (ESA) atop the fuselage, creating a hybrid 2Ku + ESA configuration that supports multi-orbit IFC.
“[I] look at, for example, our gigantic 2Ku fleet and in my mind the right roadmap for those airplanes is to add an ESA to it. I think the era of the two-antenna installation is upon us. And by doing that we can create a multi-beam solution without taking anything off the airplane and adding, you know, 60lbs of additional gear. That’s a really good way to upgrade an existing airplane to a multi-beam architecture and it can be done really fast.”
If Airbus makes the decision to adopt that type of architecture (VICTS + ESA) for the Ku-band side of its linefit, supplier-furnished HBCplus program (replacing the dual-beam ESA as intimated), Intelsat would be perfectly comfortable with such a pivot. “I love it,” Bijur confided to RGN.
Gilat Satellite Networks, whose newly acquired Stellar Blu unit supplies the multi-orbit, Sidewinder-branded ESA hardware to Intelsat (and indeed Panasonic Avionics), is however optimistic that Airbus will see fit to select its ESA for the HBCplus program. RGN hopes to gain clarity from Airbus at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg.
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Featured image of Air Canada CRJ900 credited to Jason Rabinowitz
