Gogo Galileo HDX takes flight; first installation complete on Challenger 300

Gogo Business Aviation in conjunction with Duncan Aviation, has completed the first installation of Gogo Galileo HDX on a Bombardier Challenger 300 and has commenced flight testing as the company marches toward commercial launch of its Low-Earth-Orbit global broadband solution later this year. As will be true for any of the approximately 4,000 aircraft with AVANCE platform equipment installed, installation on the Challenger consisted only of adding the fuselage-mounted antenna on top of the aircraft, running power from the aircraft to the antenna, and running a data line from the HDX back to the already-installed AVANCE L5 LRU (line replaceable unit).

Duncan Aviation Houston Satellite Manager Mark Winter commented: “Our expert team completed the installation, and then alongside Gogo’s engineers, immediately started testing the system on the ground with eight devices connected and streaming at the same time. It was impressive to say the least, and we know our customers who upgrade to Gogo Galileo will love this step-function improvement in the connectivity experience.”

Sergio Aguirre, president and chief operating officer of Gogo said: “Reaching this milestone puts Gogo Galileo HDX on track to launch in the fourth quarter, on time and on budget. Gogo Galileo customers will experience highly reliable service on the Eutelsat OneWeb enterprise grade LEO satellite network, which unlike competitive LEO networks, does not share bandwidth with consumer users.”

Gogo will now enter the next phase of testing to finetune the performance and integrity of the system, including electromagnetic interference (EMI) ground testing, vibe and buffeting testing, and a robust flight-testing campaign.

As of the company’s second quarter earnings report, Gogo Galileo HDX has eight STC programs committed covering 5,318 aircraft, and another 21 STC agreements in process covering another 12,267 aircraft. 

The HDX antenna is designed with a small form factor to fit on any size business aircraft with mean speeds of 57 Mbps and peak speeds up to 60 Mbps. It will be followed by the Gogo Galileo FDX antenna in the first half of 2025 which is a larger antenna designed for larger aircraft, that will achieve mean speeds of 189 Mbps and peak speeds up to 195 Mbps.