Telesat LEO communications network progresses with antenna contract award

Canadian satellite owner Telesat has taken another step towards building its Lightspeed low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation, that will be engineered to provide fast connectivity to ships and rival other LEO networks.

Telesat has contracted South Korea-headquartered Intellian to provide antennas and terminal equipment for the multiple landing stations expected for Lightspeed.

Intellian said it will design, supply, install and integrate 127 gateway antenna systems at these landing stations to enable communications with the LEO satellites in all weather and environmental conditions.

It is also the main manufacturer of end-users’ dual parabolic antennas and terminals for phase one of the Lightspeed project.

Each landing station will be equipped with basebands, networks and control systems to route data to users’ points-of-presence for telecom networks, internet and cloud services, and they will facilitate private interconnections for customer networks.

Telesat’s vice president for Lightspeed systems development, Aneesh Dalvi, said Intellian was previously involved in Telesat’s testing programmes and flight operations for the LEO demonstration satellites.

“Our global terrestrial infrastructure will be deployed and integrated with our space assets to deliver services globally in 2027,” said Mr Dalvi.

Telesat plans to launch 198 satellites in the next three years to build this LEO constellation for high throughput, low-latency communications to offer Giga bps broadband speeds to vessels, especially cruise ships.