HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Telesat, formerly Telesat Canada, is a Canadian
satellite communications A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. ...
company A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared ...
founded on May 2, 1969. The company is headquartered in
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the c ...
.


History

Telesat began as Telesat Canada, a Canadian
Crown corporation A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the government ...
created by an Act of Parliament, in 1969. Telesat Canada launched
Anik A1 Anik may refer to: * Anik (satellite), satellites launched by Canadian telecommunications company Telesat * Anik, Iran, a village in South Khorasan Province, Iran * Anik Mountain * Anik Bissonnette, a Canadian ballet dancer * Anik Jean (born 1977) ...
in 1972 as the world's first domestic communications satellite in
geostationary orbit A geostationary orbit, also referred to as a geosynchronous equatorial orbit''Geostationary orbit'' and ''Geosynchronous (equatorial) orbit'' are used somewhat interchangeably in sources. (GEO), is a circular geosynchronous orbit in altitu ...
operated by a commercial company; this satellite was retired from use in 1981. Until February 1979, Telesat had a legal monopoly on Earth stations in Canada: any entity wishing to send or receive satellite signals had to sign a long-term lease with Telesat Canada for an
Earth station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fr ...
. Contracts for such leases were still enforced after the monopoly was ended. Telesat Canada was privatized and sold by the federal government to
Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in ...
in 1998. On December 18, 2006, Loral Space & Communications announced that it, along with Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), would acquire Telesat for US$2.8 billion. On October 5, 2007, Loral Space & Communications Inc. and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board of Canada received the final regulatory approval necessary to complete the acquisition of Telesat from
BCE Inc. BCE Inc., formerly Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., is a publicly traded Canadian holding company for Bell Canada, which includes telecommunications providers and various mass media assets under its subsidiary Bell Media Inc. Founded through a cor ...
for CAD$3.25 billion. The acquisition closed on October 31, 2007, with Loral owning 63% of Telesat. At the same time, Telesat merged with Loral Skynet (formerly AT&T Skynet), a subsidiary of Loral Space & Communications. Loral Skynet was a full-service global satellite operator headquartered in
Bedminster, New Jersey Bedminster is a township in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the township's population was 8,165, reflecting a decline of 137 (−1.7%) from the 8,302 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in t ...
. This resulted in the transfer of all of the assets of Loral Skynet to Telesat. Telesat announced on December 30, 2009, that Nimiq 6 was built by
Space Systems/Loral SSL, formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC (SS/L), of Palo Alto, California, is a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary of Maxar Technologies. SSL designs and builds satellites and space systems for a wide variety of government and commercial cust ...
(SS/L).
Bell Satellite TV Bell Satellite TV (french: Bell Télé; formerly known as Bell ExpressVu, Dish Network Canada and ExpressVu Dish Network and not to be confused with Bell's IPTV Fibe TV service) is the division of BCE Inc. that provides satellite television ser ...
, a Canadian satellite TV provider agreed to fully lease the satellite for its lifetime to serve their subscribers across Canada. Nimiq 6 has a payload of 32 high-powered Ku-band transponders. It uses the SS/L1300 platform and has a 15-year mission life. It was launched in 2012 by International Launch Services (ILS). On November 17, 2010: Telesat Holdings Inc. hired
JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, t ...
& Co.,
Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
and
Credit Suisse Credit Suisse Group AG is a global investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world and is one of the nine global " ...
Group AG to start a formal sales process and offer so-called staple financing to interest buyers for $6 billion to $7 billion. MHI Launch Services (formerly H-IIA Launch Services) ) launched Telstar 12 VANTAGE for Telesat in November 2015 on a H2A204 variant of the
H-IIA H-IIA (H-2A) is an active expendable launch system operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. These liquid fuel rockets have been used to launch satellites into geostationary orbit; lunar or ...
rocket, and it commenced service in December 2015.


Lightspeed LEO constellation

In 2016, Telesat announced it would launch a low-Earth-orbit (LEO)
constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...
of 120 satellites, in
polar orbit A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited (usually a planet such as the Earth, but possibly another body such as the Moon or Sun) on each revolution. It has an inclination of about ...
and in
inclined orbit A satellite is said to occupy an inclined orbit around Earth if the orbit exhibits an angle other than 0° to the equatorial plane. This angle is called the orbit's inclination. A planet is said to have an inclined orbit around the Sun if it has an ...
s, about in altitude, using the
Ka-band The Ka band (pronounced as either "kay-ay band" or "ka band") is a portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 26.5–40 gigahertz (GHz), i.e. wavelengths from slightly over one centime ...
, across 6
orbital plane The orbital plane of a revolving body is the geometric plane in which its orbit lies. Three non-collinear points in space suffice to determine an orbital plane. A common example would be the positions of the centers of a massive body (host) an ...
s, having at least 12 satellites in each plane. The siting of the orbital planes is to comply with the Canadian government's Enhanced Satellite Constellation Project, as well as providing global coverage. The constellation is officially named Telesat Lightspeed. In 2017, Telesat expanded the LEO constellation plan to about 300 satellites, coupled with 50 ground stations across the globe. There would be about 80 polar orbit satellites, with the remainder in inclined orbits, for global coverage, including polar regions. The internet satellite constellation is targeted to have a 30-50 ms latency. The satellites are expected to be around and last 10 years on orbit. The constellation is expected to have a 16-24
Tb/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
capacity with 8 Tbit/s (1
TB/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
) available for customers. In 2018, the Phase 1 pathfinder test satellite for the LEO constellation was launched. Various customers and satellite transceiver equipment manufacturers started testing with the satellite. In 2019, Telesat contracted with
Blue Origin Blue Origin, LLC is an American private spaceflight, privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Am ...
on their
New Glenn New Glenn is a heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle in development by Blue Origin. Named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, design work on the vehicle began in 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initial ...
rocket and
Relativity Space Relativity Space is an American aerospace manufacturing company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 2015 by Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone. Relativity Space is developing manufacturing technologies, launch vehicles and ...
with their Terran 1 rocket, for satellite launches to their LEO constellation. In 2020, Telesat filed plans for expanding the satellite count to its LEO constellation to over 1600 satellites. In November 2020, Telesat announced that it will become a publicly traded on the American stock index
NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
in mid 2021.


Services

The company is the fourth-largest fixed satellite services provider in the world. It owns a fleet of satellites, with others under construction, and operates additional satellites for other entities. Telesat carries Canada's two major DBS providers signals:
Bell Satellite TV Bell Satellite TV (french: Bell Télé; formerly known as Bell ExpressVu, Dish Network Canada and ExpressVu Dish Network and not to be confused with Bell's IPTV Fibe TV service) is the division of BCE Inc. that provides satellite television ser ...
and
Shaw Direct Shaw Direct is a direct broadcast satellite television distributor in Canada and a subsidiary of the telecommunications company Shaw Communications. As of 2010, Shaw Direct had over 900,000 subscribers. It broadcasts on Ku band from two communic ...
, as well as more than 200 of Canada's television channels. Telesat's Anik F2 carries a
Ka-band The Ka band (pronounced as either "kay-ay band" or "ka band") is a portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 26.5–40 gigahertz (GHz), i.e. wavelengths from slightly over one centime ...
spot beam A spot beam, in telecommunications parlance, is a satellite signal that is specially concentrated in power (i.e. sent by a high-gain antenna) so that it will cover only a limited geographic area on Earth. Spot beams are used so that only Earth stat ...
payload for satellite Internet access for
Wildblue Viasat Inc. is an American communications company based in Carlsbad, California, with additional operations across the United States and worldwide. Viasat is a provider of high-speed satellite broadband services and secure networking systems co ...
users in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and
Xplornet Xplore Inc. is a Woodstock, New Brunswick-based rural internet service provider. It is the largest rural focused broadband service provider in Canada. History Xplore Inc. was founded in 2004 under the name Barrett Enterprises. In 2011, Barrett ...
users in Canada. The KA band system uses spot beams to manage bandwidth concerns, linking to multiple satellite ground stations connected to the Internet.


Offices


Satellites launched for Telesat

*
Anik A1 Anik may refer to: * Anik (satellite), satellites launched by Canadian telecommunications company Telesat * Anik, Iran, a village in South Khorasan Province, Iran * Anik Mountain * Anik Bissonnette, a Canadian ballet dancer * Anik Jean (born 1977) ...
– 1972 * Anik A2 – 1973 * Anik A3 – 1975 * Anik B – 1978 * Anik D1 – 1982 – decommissioned 1991 * Anik C3 – 1982 * Anik C2 – 1983 – sold to Paracom S.A. 1993 * Anik D2 – 1984 – sold to GE Americom 1991 and ARABSAT 1993 * Anik C1 – 1985 – sold to Paracom S.A. 1993 and decommissioned 2003 * Anik E2 – 1991 * Anik E1 – 1991 *
MSAT MSAT, short for ''Mobile Satellite'', is a satellite-based mobile telephony service developed by the National Research Council of Canada. Supported by a number of companies in the US and Canada, MSAT hosts a number of services, including the broad ...
-1 – 1996 * Nimiq-1 – 1999 * Anik F1 – 2000 * Nimiq-2 – 2002 *
Estrela do Sul 1 Telstar 14 or Estrela do Sul 1 (Southern Star 1) is a commercial communications satellite in the Telstar series built by Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) for Telesat to provide Ku-band communications to South America and the Southern United States. E ...
(Telstar 14) – 2004 * Anik F2 – 2004 * Anik F1R – 2005 * Anik F3 – 2007 *
Telstar 11N Telstar 11N is a communication satellite in the Telstar series of the Canadian satellite communications company Telesat Telesat, formerly Telesat Canada, is a Canadian satellite communications company founded on May 2, 1969. The company is ...
– entered service on 31 March 200

*
Nimiq-4 Nimiq-4 is a Canadian geosynchronous communications satellite. It was launched aboard a Proton-M / Briz-M launch vehicle at 21:48:00 UTC on 19 September 2008. It was positioned at 82.0° West longitude, and operated by Telesat Canada. Spa ...
– 2008 * Nimiq-5 – 2009 *
Telstar 14R Telstar 14R, also known as Estrela do Sul 2 (Southern Star 2) is a commercial communications satellite in the Telstar series built by Space Systems/Loral for Telesat to provide Ku-band communications to South America and the Southern United Stat ...
(Estrela do Sul 2) – 2011 – North solar array did not fully deplo

* Nimiq-6 – 2012 * Telstar 12V – 2015 * Telesat LEO 1 – 2018 *
Telstar 19V Telstar 19V ''(Telstar 19 Vantage)'' is a communication satellite in the Telstar series of the Canadian satellite communications company Telesat. It was built by SSL (company), Space Systems Loral (MAXAR) and is based on the SSL 1300, SSL-1300 bu ...
– 2018 *
Telstar 18V Telstar 18V ''(Telstar 18 Vantage / APStar 5C)'' is a communication satellite in the Telstar series of the Canadian satellite communications company Telesat. T18V will be equipped with C and Ku-band transponders and operate from 138° East. At , i ...
– 2018


References


External links


Telesat corporate website
{{Authority control Cable and DBS companies of Canada Companies based in Ottawa Direct broadcast satellite services Communications satellite operators Telecommunications companies established in 1969 Mass media companies established in 1969 1969 establishments in Canada 2007 mergers and acquisitions Space program of Canada