Antenna manufacturer CesiumAstro announced a deal last week to pursue testing of its Skylark inflight phased array terminal with TCI Aircraft Interiors. The effort will see the two parties engage in an assessment of the hardware for potential inclusion in a future IFC project.
At TCI, we are committed to developing and deploying multi-orbit, hybrid IFC solutions that combine flexibility, reliability, and performance. In parallel, through our collaboration with CesiumAstro, we are advancing our strategic roadmap for IFC hardware development and localization.
– Hayri Özturan, Director of Inflight Connectivity Programs at TCI Aircraft Interiors
The companies plan to start on the ground, validating the hardware and software components. From there testing will progress to an inflight demonstration, assuming they hit the necessary milestones.
The test plan is remarkably similar to the 2023 efforts, which also anticipated on-wing validation. At that time the system tested successfully on the ground with SES and Hughes Networks as partners. The inflight portion, however, does not appear to have occurred at that time.
This time around on-wing testing appears more likely.
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