Key milestone achieved towards airworthiness and Supplemental Type Certification (STC) for Wavestream’s AeroStream 40Ku High-Power Transceiver
San Dimas, California, March 3, 2021 — Wavestream, a world leader in the design and manufacture of next-generation, high-power solid-state amplifiers, announced today achieving a key milestone as tested by Global Eagle Entertainment (Global Eagle), a major In-Flight Connectivity Provider, for its IFC high-power transceiver, the Aerostream 40Ku. The successful completion of environmental conditions testing for airborne equipment, DO-160G, brings the transceiver a step closer to airworthiness and Supplemental Type Certification (STC).
Wavestream’s AeroStream 40Ku transceiver is designed for exceptionally high- reliability, with a field-reported Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF) of greater than 30,000 flight hours. The high-power transceiver incorporates the latest in Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology and enables more return bandwidth from the plane back to the satellite than previous generations. Production units are planned to be shipped for usage in commercial aircraft, starting in the second quarter of 2021.
“The true partnership between Global Eagle and Wavestream was evident in the joint engineering effort to bring about the DO-160G certification for Wavestream’s high power AeroStream 40Ku transceiver,” said Bob Huffman, Wavestream’s General Manager. “This achievement increases our already industry-leading reliability and performance in IFC transceivers and extends Wavestream’s leadership in the Ku-band IFC business area, which currently stands at 30 million flight hours and counting.”
“The DO-160G certification of Wavestream’s high-power AeroStream 40Ku transceiver extends Global Eagle’s lead in Ku-Band in-flight connectivity,” said Mike Pigott, Executive Vice President – Connectivity at Global Eagle “We are pleased that Wavestream ensured that the unit is both backwards compatible with traditional modems and is future-proof to operate with the next generation of satellite modem technologies.”
About Global Eagle
Global Eagle is the only international connectivity and media content experience organization. The company serves consumers beyond the reach of normal telecom and cable providers, bringing a digital world of connected entertainment to the aviation, maritime, enterprise and government markets. Through its intelligent leadership, investment in innovation and comprehensive product suite, it commands an envious position as an open platform single-source provider and blended solution partner.
Global Eagle connects thousands of aircraft, ships and enterprise sites across the globe, combining a complete entertainment streaming solution. The company actively engages with humanitarian projects to support a better world bringing instant connectivity solutions to disaster incidents and areas of poverty.
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About Wavestream
Wavestream is the industry leader in the design and manufacture of next generation satellite communications high power transceivers for In-Flight Connectivity, Ground Mobility and Gateway markets. Since 2001, we provide system integrators with field-proven, high performance Ka, Ku and X band Solid State Power Amplifiers (SSPAs), Block Upconverters (BUCs), Block Down Converters (BDCs) and Transceivers. We design, manufacture and repair our products in-house and have shipped over 40,000 systems over the past 20 years. Wavestream products provide high quality and reliability under the harshest environmental conditions and we are currently certified to ISO 9001:2008 and AS9100D standards. For further details please visit www.wavestream.com.
