Through its Starlink satellite constellation, SpaceX has introduced a new service to deliver fast internet to aircraft.
The fourth SpaceX space internet product, after residential, business, motorhomes, and maritime, is Starlink Aviation.
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, tweeted: “Internet in airplanes will feel the same as if you were accessing internet at home!”
Each passenger on board will be able to stream HD content concurrently according to SpaceX’s assertion that Starlink can transmit speeds of up to 350 Mbps to each plane.
“With latency as low as 20ms, passengers can engage in activities previously not functional in flight, including video calls, online gaming, virtual private networks and other high data rate activities,” Starlink’s website states.
“As the world’s largest satellite constellation with coverage over land, the oceans and polar regions, Starlink is positioned to connect passengers wherever your flight routes evolve.”
“Passengers can engage in activities previously not functional in flight, including video calls, online gaming, virtual private networks and other high data rate activities,”
Early agreements with commercial airlines have been made by SpaceX, including ones for the provision of Wi-Fi on aircraft with Hawaiian Airlines and semiprivate charter company JSX. Since the aviation Wi-Fi industry is “ripe for an overhaul,” SpaceX has only been permitted to undertake a small amount of inflight testing thus far.
Direct competition for leading in-flight connection provider Gogo is posed by this most recent offering.
The Starlink product, however, “appears to be too big and too expensive to challenge” Gogo’s dominance in the small-to-midsize business aircraft market, according to William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma, who added that “this will likely come as a welcome relief to Gogo investors.”
Aviation users will have to pay $150,000 for the hardware necessary to connect a plane to the Starlink network, which includes an Aero Terminal receiver, a power supply, and harnesses. A monthly subscription with unlimited data would cost between $12,500 and $25,000 per month.
Pre-orders are already being accepted for a $5,000 deposit, with deliveries set to begin in the middle of 2023. According to CNBC, preliminary agreements with Hawaiian Airlines and a charter business have already been made.
With plans to expand the Starlink satellite network to 12,000 satellites, SpaceX has launched over 3,500 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit so far.
Some astronomers have criticized the proposal, claiming that the constellation obstructs views of the night sky from Earth.
In an effort to prevent interfering with crucial astronomy operations, SpaceX previously told The Independent that it was working with the European radio astronomy community and the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
