On October 14, a Twitter user asked Elon Musk if he plans to put Starlink on a plane. The SpaceX boss confirmed: “Yes, we are in discussions with airlines to deploy Starlink.” He also emphasized that Starlink’s connection has low latency, high speed.
Earlier this year, SpaceX Vice President Jonathan Hofeller also said the company was in talks with airlines about using Starlink’s Wi-Fi. In June, he continued to confirm the plan was still in progress.
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Billionaire Elon Musk |
SpaceX’s Starlink project aims to build a network of thousands of satellites in outer space, allowing users on Earth to connect to high-speed internet anywhere. So far SpaceX has launched 1,740 satellites, the Starlink service has more than 100,000 test users in 14 countries for $99/month.
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Airlines often partner with broadband service providers such as Viasat, Intelsat to broadcast Wi-Fi on board. These two companies have partnered with US airlines such as Delta, JetBlue, American Airlines and United Airlines. But these services all use long-orbit satellites, while Starlink has a network of low-orbit satellites closer to Earth that can increase Wi-Fi speeds for in-flight passengers.
However, SpaceX still has to go through regulatory approval to deploy Starlink on aircraft, because this service needs to be tested for each different type of aircraft. Musk said his company is focusing on putting Starlink on popular aircraft such as Airbus A320, Boeing 737 and is continuing to test on Gulfstream aircraft.
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