Telesat is a Canadian satellite communications company and operator, providing connectivity solutions to telecom, government, and enterprise clients globally. They are currently developing Telesat Lightspeed, a low Earth orbit (LEO) constellation of 198 satellites designed for high-speed, low-latency broadband services. Telesat partners with companies like MDA Space, Orange, and Intellian for satellite manufacturing, terrestrial infrastructure, and user terminals. The company aims to begin launching satellites in 2026, with the constellation fully operational by 2027.
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Airbus Defence and Space and the Maxar Technologies–Thales Alenia Space team are expected to submit bids to Telesat this summer for a manufacturing contract estimated at $3,000,000,000.
Telesat LEO satellites will rely on much less hardware than previous generations of satellites and will feature software-defined payloads with software-defined radios and an inflight router implemented in software.
Telesat plans to select a manufacturing contract winner for its LEO program later 2019.
Airbus Defence and Space completed a study contract for Telesat LEO and is a prospective manufacturer for the program.
Telesat expects the company that builds its low Earth orbit broadband satellite constellation to set up a dedicated factory capable of producing 20 to 25 satellites a month.
Telesat is designing its LEO satellites to operate for at least 10 years.
Telesat will launch its first 200 satellites to polar orbits and will then launch satellites to inclined orbits, with the next 100 satellites filling out global coverage.
Telesat is working with numerous companies, including startups, to develop low-cost flat panel antennas.
Telesat wants a production rate of 20 to 25 satellites per month to support a monthly launch cadence ahead of a target service-start date at the end of 2022 with around 200 satellites.
Airbus is competing against a Maxar Technologies–Thales Alenia Space team for an estimated $3,000,000,000 contract to build Telesat’s megaconstellation.
Relativity announced a multi-launch contract with Telesat to support Telesat’s Low Earth Orbit constellation.
The new Hughes–Yahsat joint venture will use more than 65 gigabits per second of Ka-band capacity supplied from Yahsat’s Al Yah 3 satellite and Hughes’ leased payloads on Eutelsat’s 65 West A and Telesat’s Telstar-19 Vantage satellites.
Relativity announced a contract with satellite operator Telesat on 2019-04-05 for an unspecified number of launches for Telesat’s proposed broadband satellite constellation.
Telesat reported a quarterly net income of 172 million Canadian dollars on revenue of 222 million Canadian dollars.
Telesat launched the geostationary high-throughput satellites Telstar-18 Vantage and Telstar-19 Vantage in the past 12 months.
Telesat planned to have the LEO constellation in service in 2022.
Telesat is providing a small amount of capacity to Intelsat to cover for Intelsat’s 2019-04-07 loss of the Intelsat-29e satellite.
Telesat had not specified how many satellites it would initially order for the LEO constellation.
Telesat signed contracts with Indonesian telecommunications service provider PT iForte Solusi Infotek for Ku-band and C-band capacity on Telstar-18 Vantage.
In March, maritime connectivity provider OmniAccess signed a contract to be the first customer for Telesat’s LEO constellation under a take-or-pay arrangement.