New agreement advances the commercial infrastructure needed to deliver and manage satellite communications for drones and advanced air mobility
Galaxy 1 Communications and Viasat have announced a new agreement to expand commercial support for Viasat’s Velaris satellite communications platform. The agreement follows two years of joint development, integration, and testing.
The companies will move their jointly developed service platform into commercial production. The goal is to make satellite connectivity easier to deploy and manage across a growing range of uncrewed aircraft operations.
The agreement, announced November 2, 2026, focuses on the systems needed to support commercial services at scale. These include customer onboarding, billing, network management, and integration with third-party applications.
Supporting Satellite Connectivity for Drone Operations
Viasat’s Velaris platform provides satellite communications services for autonomous aircraft and advanced air mobility (AAM). It uses Viasat’s L-band satellite network to support connectivity for aircraft operating across different environments.
Potential applications include drone delivery, medical logistics, emergency response, industrial inspections, and future air taxi services.
Satellite connectivity can play an important role in operations where terrestrial networks have limited coverage. It can also provide an additional communications option for aircraft operating across large or remote areas. However, expanding satellite-enabled drone services requires more than communications coverage. Operators and service providers also need systems to activate equipment, monitor connections, manage customers, and resolve service problems.
The Galaxy 1 agreement addresses these operational and commercial requirements.
Moving From Development to Commercial Production
Under the agreement, Galaxy 1 will provide the systems that support commercial delivery of Velaris services.
The company’s responsibilities include managing customer onboarding, service activation, billing, and reporting. Galaxy 1 will also provide network infrastructure and remote terminal management through its RTM platform.
The platform will allow service providers to monitor and configure connected equipment, manage incidents, and restore services when problems occur.
Application programming interfaces (APIs) will also support integration with third-party drone applications and partner systems. This approach aims to reduce the work required to add new services and customers.
Martyn Durrant, Chief Commercial Officer at Galaxy 1 Communications, said:
“Moving into production is an important milestone and a strong validation of the platform we have developed with Viasat over the past two years. Our objective was never simply to provide satellite connectivity, but to establish the operational and commercial infrastructure needed to support a scalable UAV and Advanced Air Mobility ecosystem. This agreement demonstrates the value of that approach and provides an exciting foundation for the next phase of growth.”
Building a Commercial Ecosystem for Advanced Aviation
The agreement reflects a broader challenge facing the commercial drone industry: moving from individual technology demonstrations to services that can support many operators and aircraft.
Viasat’s Velaris ecosystem includes aircraft manufacturers, operators, communications providers, and technology partners. As that network grows, the companies aim to offer a common framework for delivering and managing satellite-enabled services.
Sandeep Moorthy, Senior Vice President and GM, Advanced NTN Solutions, New Ventures at Viasat, said:
“Viasat is at the center of a growing ecosystem that is helping shape the future of next-generation uncrewed connectivity services. As Velaris expands, partners need scalable frameworks to deploy, manage, and scale efficiently. This collaboration is an important part of that capability, strengthening the partner network and accelerating services worldwide.”
The announcement marks a shift from testing the joint platform to supporting commercial service delivery. It does not identify new aircraft deployments, customer contracts, or specific service launch dates.
For the wider drone industry, the agreement highlights the growing importance of the infrastructure behind connected aircraft. Reliable communications remain essential, but commercial growth also depends on systems that make those services easier to operate and manage.
By expanding the commercial support available through Velaris, Viasat and Galaxy 1 aim to help partners bring satellite-enabled drone services to market at greater scale.
Read more:
Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, Email Miriam.
TWITTER:@spaldingbarker
Subscribe to DroneLife here.
