The Canadian government has announced a loan of C$2.14 billion (€1.42bn) to satellite operator Telesat to help the company build its broadband satellite constellation in what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as Canada’s largest ever space programme. Trudeau said the Telesat Lightspeed constellation will enable people in the most remote parts of the country, including […]

The Canadian-based Kepler mega-constellation has been working with a pair of prototype ‘pathfinder’ craft operating in low Earth orbit in order to prove its system, and has released data which shows how powerful the concept could be. Mina Mitry, Kepler’s CEO, said it had moved terabytes of data across its pair of demo-craft and extensively […]

Ottawa-based Telesat’s planned Lightspeed low Earth orbiting mega-constellation is moving ahead. MDA, which is the prime contractor on the project, has selected Germany-based Tesat-Spacecom to manufacture 792 laser terminals for the 198-satellite system. Tesat is an independent operating subsidiary of Airbus Defense & Space. Earlier this year Tesat announced that it was expanding its factory […]

Ottawa-based geostationary satellite operator Telesat reported an underwhelming set of Q1 numbers. Every key metric showed a decline in revenues. Overall revenue was down a worrying 17 per cent year-on-year to C$152 million (€103.1m) for the three months to March 31st. “The decrease was primarily due to a reduction of services and lower rate on […]

Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat’s CEO Dan Goldberg told delegates to the Washington Satellite 2024 event that Telesat was not restricting its ambitions to the 198-craft Lightspeed mega-constellation of low Earth orbiting satellites. “Is 198 satellites enough? Yes, certainly to get started,” Goldberg stated. “With 198 satellites we’ll have terabytes and terabytes of fully global, highly […]

Arabsat’s CEO Alhamedi Alanezi says the satellite operator’s revenues for last year exceeded $200 million (€182.9m). Alanezi said that the company’s expansion plans could be funded from its own resources without the need to raise debt. Arabsat also announced that it has signed a MoU with Canada-based Telesat. The partnership aims to leverage Arabsat’s expertise […]

Avanti Communications has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with satellite operators Telesat to test and develop LEO services as part of its global strategy to deliver multi-orbit solutions to customers at scale. Avanti plans to incorporate Telesat’s Lightspeed services into its network to provide affordable broadband connectivity worldwide. Telesat’s global network […]

Investment bank BNPP, in a major examination of three key satellite operators and their share prices, says SES, Eutelsat and Telesat have remained under pressure – with only Telesat making some modest headway because of its progress with its Lightspeed low Earth orbit constellation. In a self-examination of what it got right (and wrong) in […]

Analysts at Euroconsult forecast that the next decade will see some 28,700 satellites launched into space. The activity will be worth around $588 billion (€536.4bn). Activity from, Starlink, Project Kuiper, Telesat’s Lightspeed, Eutelsat/OneWeb and Chinese craft will lead the exponential growth. The analysts admit that their forecast might be an underestimate; they have included in […]

Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat says it is ramping up its investment in its Lightspeed low Earth orbiting fleet and helped by C$2 billion (€1.3bn) of funds coming from Canadian government and provincial sources. Lightspeed, an initial 156-craft fleet and which could be extended by an extra 100 craft, is costed at C$3.5 billion. Telesat says […]