An artist rendition of an Iridium Next satellite. Photo: Iridium

Iridium has been boosted with addition of another Iridium Certus service provider. Rockwell Collins will add the Iridium Certus service to its suite of aircraft connectivity applications for commercial, government, and ArincDirect business customers.

Iridium Certus will deliver L-band broadband to the aviation industry with small form factor antennas and terminals. The Iridium Certus High-Gain Antenna (HGA) solutions will provide data speed options of up to 704 Kbps, and eventually as high as approximately 1.4 Mbps following full Iridium NEXT deployment, with an antenna size of approximately 24 x 10 x 6cm. The Low-Gain Antenna (LGA) solutions will enable data speeds of up to 176 Kbps.

Initial flight trials will take place later this year, and Iridium Certus commercial service is expected to be introduced in mid-2019.