Telesat expands Canadian landing station footprint for Lightspeed

TAMPA, Fla. — Telesat has gained access to more land across Canada to set up landing stations ahead of plans to deploy pathfinders for its Lightspeed broadband constellation in December.

The Canadian operator said March 10 it acquired sites in Estevan, Saskatchewan and Papineauville in Quebec, and leased land in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, for stations that would route data between the satellites and major fiber and internet exchange points.

Additional sites are set to be contracted in the coming months as the company targets the start of initial global services in 2027, according to Telesat chief network and information officer Asit Tandon.

“We expect to have 24 Telesat landing stations operational when global services begin,” he said via email. 

“Customers can also elect to use private landing stations with the Telesat Lightspeed network, providing additional options for sovereign data control.”

Telesat has previously disclosed plans for a Lightspeed landing station in Timmins, Ontario, alongside agreements with Orange in France and Vocus in New South Wales, Australia.

The company has already ordered 127 gateway antennas from South Korea’s Intellian to populate the landing station sites, along with an agreement with Israel-based SatixFy for their signal processing systems.

Tandon declined to disclose more information about plans to deploy a couple of Lightspeed pathfinders toward the end of this year, ahead of serial SpaceX launches that Telesat expects to begin two to four months later to deploy the full 198-satellite network.

Canada’s MDA Space is building the satellites and is equipping them with optical inter-satellite links (OISLs) that enable data to be routed in orbit, reducing reliance on ground-based relay infrastructure.

OISLs “greatly reduce the number of required landing stations, but they don’t eliminate the need for them,” Tandon said.

“Our landing station placement across the globe is designed to deliver data close to its final destination to reduce latency further. Additionally, several countries require that satellite traffic serving their territory must land within their borders for security, privacy or sovereignty concerns.” 

These countries include India, the world’s most populous nation, which last year announced tightened security and data compliance rules for satellite connectivity to protect national security interests.

The proposed network of ground sites would enable each Lightspeed satellite to see multiple landing stations at any given time, improving network resiliency. Distributing stations across regions also helps maintain service during weather disruptions.

Telesat said it expects to complete the newly announced Quebec landing station before September, with the Saskatchewan sites set to follow by the end of the year.