Viasat’s Global Leadership in Emerging Aviation

July 30, 2024 | Dawn Zoldi

Viasat, a global leader in satellite communications, offers a comprehensive suite of connectivity solutions for commercial aviation, from high-performing in-flight Wi-Fi to flight operations and safety connectivity and passenger engagement portals. In this exclusive interview, Jerry Hancock, the Director of Aviation Safety Solutions and Cybersecurity at Viasat, with a rich background in both regulatory and commercial sectors, discusses the company’s role in shaping the future of aviation through satellite communications.

Dawn Zoldi: Jerry, before we dive into Viasat, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Jerry Hancock: Sure. I’ve been with Viasat for about six or seven years. My focus has predominantly been on aviation safety, which I’ve been involved with for the past 30 years. Before joining Viasat, I worked at the FAA for 15 years in various roles. This experience gave me a unique perspective from the regulator’s side, even though I wasn’t directly involved in regulation. Most of my work was in operations, planning and NextGen initiatives. Now, working on the commercial side, I support aviation safety operations and cybersecurity solutions that span across ground networks and air-to-ground data connectivity for both commercial aviation and uncrewed mobility markets. It’s really exciting because I can help with Viasat’s focus on innovation while also providing that regulatory perspective. This enables us to bring products and services to market within the parameters that the regulators will require.

Dawn Zoldi: Tell us about Viasat. What does it do, and how did it start?

Jerry Hancock: Mark Dankberg, who’s like the Steve Jobs of Viasat, started the company with a focus on providing satellite communications and internet access to the world. When I left the FAA, I actually started working for Inmarsat, a UK-based satellite company. About a year ago, Viasat acquired Inmarsat. This brought together two powerhouse companies in the space industry with an emphasis on serving government and commercial mobility customers. With the integration of Inmarsat, we’ve now added a whole new business market focused on aviation safety services. We’re taking what we’ve been doing for years in maritime and aeronautical safety communications, and combining that with Viasat’s broader business to integrate these safety services.

Dawn Zoldi: Viasat uses satellites that orbit around the Earth to provide these communications. Tell us more about that.

Jerry Hancock: We actually own and operate the majority of our satellites to provide a global service. We use geostationary (GEO) satellites, which rotate with the Earth’s orbit and maintain a constant footprint over a geographical area. This is different from low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, which are constantly moving through Earth’s orbit. One advantage of our GEO system is that, because they are so powerful and have an extremely broad field of view, we don’t need as many satellites as LEO systems to provide the same type of coverage. This allows us to create redundancy between our satellites and have a lower number of satellites overall. While GEO satellites do create more latency in communications, when you do the math, the overall latency often ends up being very similar to LEO systems due to the need for LEO satellites to retransmit data across multiple satellites.

Dawn Zoldi: There are different spectrums associated with satellites. You focus on L-band for the drone and air taxi industry. Why?

Jerry Hancock: That’s a great question. L-band is particularly important for safety communications because it’s not impacted by weather, unlike other spectrums used for TV and internet access. For example, in Florida, you’ll often see satellite TV go out during afternoon thunderstorms. But L-band works even in the worst weather conditions. This is crucial for drones because regulators are concerned about how you’re managing, monitoring and communicating with the aircraft to understand exactly where it is and what it’s doing. L-band provides that always-on communications platform.

Dawn Zoldi: Let’s talk about Velaris, your product for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations. What can you tell us about it?

Jerry Hancock: Velaris is our product specifically designed for the drone and air mobility space. We’re using the same satellite infrastructure that we use for all of our safety communications, but making some tweaks to our ground infrastructure to better support it. Our biggest innovation has been in our terminal platforms. We’ve managed to shrink our terminals down to the size of an iPhone. Our multi-link terminal, which does both SATCOM and LTE, is about the size of an iPhone Pro Max. We also have a SATCOM unit integrated with an antenna that weighs less than 2 pounds and is only about 7-8 inches tall. These compact systems work well for smaller drone platforms that need BVLOS capabilities. We’re currently testing these systems with partners in Spain to ensure we can deal with all the interference issues that come with small drones in compact spaces. As we integrate these platforms, we’re confident that regulators will recognize our 30-year history in aviation safety communications and that this will help drive the industry forward in BVLOS operations.

Dawn Zoldi: Is there an ecosystem around Velaris? If I have a business and want to do drone delivery BVLOS with a SATCOM option, how do I tap into it?

Jerry Hancock: Today, we’re building that ecosystem. We’re partnering with several companies to provide a holistic solution. We’re working with different aspects of the market, including future air taxis, both autonomous and piloted. We’re trying to create an ecosystem that includes tools for safety assessments, whether Specific Operations Risk Assessments (SORA) or Safety Management Systems (SMS). We’re also working with partners like Thales to integrate some of their products so we can provide holistic solutions to customers. This way, not everyone has to go out and buy their own systems. We can do it as a group partnership. We’re also working on integrating our multi-link platform that allows customers to use different types of technologies to manage their data.

Dawn Zoldi: How does UAS traffic management (UTM) occur in this future ecosystem? How does Viasat fit into the UTM framework and concepts we have here in the U.S. and in Europe with U-space?

Jerry Hancock: I think it’s going to be very similar in both marketplaces. Europe has predefined the regulations a bit better than the U.S. in some cases. For those not familiar, I’d really recommend looking at the UTM ConOps put out by the FAA and the U-space regulation in Europe. There are a lot of similarities in terms of the critical data and stakeholders involved. While this ecosystem is new, there are similarities to things that have been done before. Viasat is bringing forward our history in general aviation, commercial and military applications to inform the future. We fit into UTM through the work we’re doing with our partners. We have to be able to take data and provide it to UTM integrators. We have partners like Altitude Angel and Frequentis whose customers are regulators like the FAA or regional air navigation service providers (ANSPs) in Europe. They need to exchange flight plan information and provide confidence that they have trusted data. This allows the regulator to make informed choices about approving flight plans. We’re working on products that provide real-time analysis of tracking data, whether from carriers like ourselves or radar feeds, to show the aerospace environment and enable deconfliction between commercial aviation, general aviation and air taxis.

Dawn Zoldi: Data is going to be king as we move forward, and not just for communications links. How has Viasat been leading in creating standards for the reliability of data required in emerging aviation?

Jerry Hancock: The European regulators have mandated that communications providers like Viasat have to provide certain types of data if we’re going to support this market. We have been working with people from the drone and telecom industries to develop future standards to support these requirements and create common standards for information exchange. Thomas Neubauer from Dimetor (AirborneRF) deserves a lot of credit for leading some of these efforts. Our team is part of that work to standardize how we do this data exchange.

Dawn Zoldi: Let’s pivot to electric aviation. How does Viasat’s work in the commercial aviation arena relate to the advanced air mobility (AAM) and electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that we are seeing emerge?

Jerry Hancock: For us in commercial aviation, there’s a lot going on. The UAV market in recent years has led to new ways of doing business in aviation communications. We’re no longer just focused on the safety spectrum. We’re looking at how to combine communications capabilities to move towards more performance-based standards rather than prescriptive regulatory standards that constrain technical solutions. There’s a new concept called “hyper-connectivity” put forward by Airbus, Boeing, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the FAA. It’s about how we can combine communications and focus more on performance and security rather than specific technologies. eVTOLs is a great market for this because the aircraft are smaller. Unlike large commercial aircraft, eVTOLs will likely want that blend of drone-like combined communications in a certified regulatory environment. We’re putting together solutions that bond multiple band channels to provide broader bandwidth. This allows for safety communications between pilot and controller, as well as passenger connectivity needs. We’re working with partners and customers to better serve that market as both regulations and technologies evolve. It’s leading to innovative ways of implementing communications across different aviation platforms. Viasat is really in a perfect position to help advance the world of autonomy and innovative air mobility (IAM).

Dawn Zoldi: Jerry, what do you perceive as one of the biggest challenges you face?

Jerry Hancock: From where I sit at Viasat, I believe the biggest challenge right now is education. People don’t fully appreciate the ways in which satellite technology has improved. The dishes don’t have to be huge anymore. We’ve gotten terminals down to the size of an iPhone.

Dawn Zoldi: Thanks so much Jerry. This has been really insightful. How can people reach you, see you in person next and learn more about Viasat?

Jerry Hancock: We absolutely encourage people to reach out to us. We’ve been flexible in working with different partners, including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), to come up with creative solutions. What’s exciting is that everyone has innovative ideas we haven’t thought of before. For upcoming events, I’ll be at the FAA conference in Baltimore at the end of July. You also can find more information on the Viasat website. My email is jerry.hancock@viasat.com.