Archer to Bring Starlink’s High-Speed Connectivity Onboard its Midnight eVTOL Aircraft

Archer Avi­a­tion will work with Star­link to bring sta­ble, reli­able and high-speed con­nec­tiv­i­ty to its elec­tric air taxis. The announce­ment rep­re­sents Starlink’s entry into the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket and an indus­try-first col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Under the agree­ment, which was announced at the end of last week, Archer will install Starlink’s low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satel­lite inter­net sys­tem into its Mid­night air­craft and con­duct test­ing. The sys­tem is designed to pro­vide high-speed, low-laten­cy, con­nec­tiv­i­ty dur­ing Midnight’s air taxi oper­a­tions.

Adam Gold­stein, founder and CEO of Archer, said, “Con­nec­tiv­i­ty is a must have fea­ture for Mid­night. Star­link is unique­ly built to deliv­er it. This indus­try-first col­lab­o­ra­tion will enable seam­less, high-speed con­nec­tiv­i­ty and essen­tial ameni­ties for our pas­sen­gers and pilots.”

Unlike tra­di­tion­al air­craft con­nec­tiv­i­ty solu­tions that rely on ground tow­ers or geo­sta­tion­ary satel­lites, Starlink’s LEO con­stel­la­tion is engi­neered to pro­vide con­sis­tent, high-band­width cov­er­age even at low flight alti­tudes and in dense urban envi­ron­ments where cel­lu­lar cov­er­age is often unre­li­able.

These char­ac­ter­is­tics make Star­link unique­ly suit­ed to next-gen­er­a­tion avi­a­tion plat­forms, such as air taxis oper­at­ing in and around cities at alti­tudes of approx­i­mate­ly 1,500 feet.

Beyond pas­sen­ger inter­net access, Archer plans to uti­lize Star­link to enable com­mu­ni­ca­tions between Mid­night, pilots and engi­neer­ing teams on the ground, help­ing to sup­port the company’s air taxi con­nec­tiv­i­ty infra­struc­ture. Archer and Star­link also plan to work togeth­er to devel­op a con­nec­tiv­i­ty solu­tion that can help pow­er Archer’s future devel­op­ment of autonomous air­craft. 

Archer’s goal is to enable pas­sen­gers in Mid­night to trav­el across cities between five and 15 min­utes, dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing trav­el times com­pared to tra­di­tion­al ground trans­porta­tion. Star­link will pro­vide those pas­sen­gers with con­sis­tent, high-speed con­nec­tiv­i­ty through­out their short trips.

Mid­night is Archer’s pilot­ed elec­tric air taxi designed to car­ry up to four pas­sen­gers while pro­duc­ing less noise and emis­sions than a tra­di­tion­al heli­copter. Mid­night is built with redun­dant sys­tems across the aircraft—including 12 total engines and propellers—allowing Archer to tar­get sim­i­lar lev­els of safe­ty as com­mer­cial air­lin­ers.