The SES mPOWER constellation will grow by two satellites to offset shortcomings on the initial six.
Satellite
KONNECT VHTS comes online, boosting Eutelsat capacity
Eutelsat’s KONNECT VHTS satellite is now active, bringing 500 Gbps of Ka-band capacity into service over Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East
Viasat updates pricing plans in BizAv push
Viasat expects to deliver improved inflight connectivity to its business aviation customers from early 2024. This “expanded range of service options,” announced at NBAA 2023 in Las Vegas, will be available across a range of antenna terminal hardware
Viasat recovers 10% of capacity, will not replace ViaSat-3 Americas satellite
Just 10% of the ViaSat-3 F1 satellite’s planned capacity will be available, the company has confirmed. Still, that should leave the satellite as one of the highest capacity systems in orbit, enough that Viasat “remains confident that it will meet the current and future needs of its mobility customers.” A replacement satellite will not be required.
In search of the optimal curves for drag performance
Aircraft generally adhere to the “less is more” principle, with smaller and lighter components winning out for installation. So hearing that a larger radome might reduce drag on their aircraft relative to smaller options definitely piqued my curiosity.
SkyFive sees “wildly inconsistent” performance across inflight connectivity services
Which is the best inflight internet service flying today? SkyFive recently performed a series of measurements across Europe, benchmarking various systems. The results are, as expected, less than compelling.
Beyond the bytes: Partnerships pushing product progress
Air Canada’s newly expanded relationship with Intelsat shows off the power of jointly developing not just a bandwidth map, but partnering on how that service is delivered, to the airline and to passengers on board.
Air Canada expands Intelsat partnership for in-flight Wi-Fi on 737 MAX, regional jets
Updated inflight internet systems are coming to Air Canada’s 737 MAX and regional jets. In total, approximately 100 planes will see Intelsat’s systems installed in the years ahead.
Viasat suffers power anomaly on I6 F2
For the second time this summer Viasat has seen a failure of efforts to grow its global satellite constellation. The I6-F2 satellite, launched in February by Inmarsat, “suffered a power subsystem anomaly during its orbit raising phase” and will not enter service as planned.
GEO keeps growing for Panasonic Avionics
Panasonic Avionics plans a 50% growth in its GEO satellite network capacity. Alas, the company won’t really share any details beyond that, which raises additional questions.