Gogo celebrates global broadband antenna testing milestone, on track for commercial launch

Gogo Business Aviation celebrated another milestone on Thursday with the Gogo Galileo global broadband service completing end-to-end connectivity using the HDX antenna on a fully developed Eutelsat OneWeb Low Earth Orbit satellite network. Gogo Galileo is on track for a commercial launch this year. In February Gogo received its first fully constructed engineering prototype of the HDX antenna from Hughes Network Systems, an EchoStar company. This antenna was designed to be small enough to fit on any size business aircraft and has already begun software integration and validation testing at the Broomfield, Colorado headquarters. "Gogo Galileo HDX stands to revolutionize business aviation inflight connectivity by delivering a solution fit for aircraft of all sizes, especially small jets, which have limited options today, and no broadband options outside North America" Gogo President and COO Sergio Aguirre said. "We remain on track to deliver this game-changing technology later this year." This summer Gogo will begin flight testing with the HDX terminal and certification and the commercial launch are expected for later this year. "Today's passengers demand exceptional connectivity while traveling, even while flying," Hughes VP Reza Rasoulian said. "The ability to provide secure and reliable connectivity globally is a critical need in the industry and Hughes is proud to be a partner in bringing Gogo Galileo to market." "This successful test of the Gogo Galileo HDX on the Eutelsat OneWeb network is a meaningful milestone, and extremely timely ahead of our launch of aviation connectivity services later this year," said Jason Sperry, head of business aviation for Eutelsat OneWeb. "Our LEO constellation is fully deployed, and we are finalizing the ground infrastructure to deliver seamless, low latency and high-performance broadband connectivity to business jets no matter where they fly."