Carlisle Interconnect Technologies (CIT) to Collaborate with Ball Aerospace

Carlisle Interconnect Technologies (CIT) is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Ball Aerospace to bring a new satellite communications (SATCOM) antenna to the commercial aviation marketplace.

“Ball Aerospace’s antenna technology and electronics manufacturing and Carlisle’s experience in commercial aerospace manufacturing, integration engineering, and airworthiness certification make for a powerful team to bring this high-performance antenna to the market,” said Jeff Behlendorf, director of product management, CIT. “Today, we are excited to launch this collaboration with Ball Aerospace and continue to drive the rapid innovation taking place in the commercial aviation connectivity marketplace.”

Under this agreement, Ball Aerospace will bring its 50 years of experience designing and delivering phased array antennas for a range of space, sea, land, and air applications for both commercial and military customers. Ball AIRLINK L-band and X-band antennas fly on more than 1,600 aircraft, and Ball has successfully tested its first-generation AIRLINK Ku- and Ka-band products with geostationary Earth orbit and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. CIT will leverage Ball’s second-generation of fully electronically steerable phased array antennas. These second-generation Ball antennas have been designed for commercial production using Ball Aerospace’s innovative sub-array antenna architecture–An electronically steerable flat panel array building block designed to be tiled with other sub-arrays to form a SATCOM terminal.

“Ball Aerospace’s latest Ku- and Ka-band antennas are designed for low-cost, high-volume production to meet the needs of the commercial industry,” said Rob Freedman, vice president and general manager, Tactical Solutions, Ball Aerospace. “With Carlisle’s expertise in interconnectivity, manufacturing, and avionics equipment, this agreement brings together the right team to provide innovative solutions for the commercial aviation marketplace.”

CIT’s role will include delivering a diverse global manufacturing footprint, aircraft integration and electronics packaging experience, and global airworthiness regulatory expertise both for new aircraft production and Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) retrofits.