Elon Musk confirmed that SpaceX is still working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on certifying Starlink internet services in the air.
In his reply to a question on Twitter, Musk noted that SpaceX is still testing on Gulfstreams to debug the issues.
However, the priority for the company is deploying on commercial airlines.
Musk hopes to have full FAA certification within six months, as per the tweet. However, it will depend on the FAA to meet those deadlines.
Depends mostly on FAA certification, but hopefully within 6 months.
We’re testing on Gulfstreams to debug issues, but deployment priority is commercial airliners.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2022
In June 2021, we reported that SpaceX was in talks with multiple commercial carriers to provide in-flight wi-fi services.
However, we have not heard much about who SpaceX was in the negotiations with exactly.
The plan was to utilize Starlink’s next-generation satellites to use inter-satellite links to allow trans-Atlantic wi-fi services.
As well, the service would include cross-country wi-fi services within the United States and parts of Canada.
Additionally, back in December 2021, we reported that SpaceX was testing Starlink on active aircraft.
At that time, the company was waiting for Federal Communications Commission permissions.
However, it would seem that they may already have that. Now, the final hurdle appears to be with the FAA.
SpaceX did not provide an official update on bringing Starlink to aircraft.
