Aireon plans to leverage the Iridium Next constellation. Photo: Aireon.

Aireon revealed that it signed a credit facility agreement for $200 million with a group of several independent investor funds, led by Deutsche Bank. This credit facility helps provide Aireon with the resources to fund various company initiatives and to continue to pay Iridium for the costs related to the integration, launch, and hosting of the Aireon payload on each of the 81 Iridium Next satellites.

The Aireon system is scheduled to go live in the first quarter of 2019, beginning with operational trials over the North Atlantic Ocean with the Canadian and British Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), Nav Canada and National Air Traffic Service (NATS). Additional deployment will occur in Nav Canada’s Edmonton airspace.

The agreement was signed on Dec. 21, 2018. This announcement comes days after the final launch of Iridium Next satellites and their Aireon hosted-payloads.