Gogo Business Aviation has installed the first Gogo Galileo HDX on a Bombardier Challenger 300 and begun flight testing as the company proceeds toward commercial launch of its Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) global broadband service later this year.

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

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.

Installation on the Challenger consisted 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 an already-installed AVANCE L5 LRU (line replaceable unit).

“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,” said Duncan Aviation Houston Satellite Manager Mark Winter. “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.”

“Reaching this milestone puts Gogo Galileo HDX on track to launch in the fourth quarter, on time and on budget,” said Sergio Aguirre, president and chief operating officer of Gogo. “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.”