{"id":58056,"date":"2021-02-19T00:37:52","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T16:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/telesat-to-build-lightspeed-constellation-in-quebec-after-receiving-400-million-investment\/"},"modified":"2021-02-19T00:37:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T16:37:52","slug":"telesat-to-build-lightspeed-constellation-in-quebec-after-receiving-400-million-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/telesat-to-build-lightspeed-constellation-in-quebec-after-receiving-400-million-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"Telesat to Build Lightspeed Constellation in Qu\u00e9bec After Receiving $400 Million Investment"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The government of Qu\u00e9bec will invest 400 million Canadian dollars ($316 million) in Telesat<\/strong>\u2018s new Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation, Lightspeed. In return, Canadian satellite operator Telesat will invest CA$1.6 billion into Qu\u00e9bec by moving a \u201csignificant portion\u201d of Lightspeed manufacturing and operations to the Canadian province, according to the terms of the MoU agreement announced February 18.<\/p>\n

Telesat\u2019s new Qu\u00e9bec-based Lightspeed production and operations facilities will include: a Network Operating Center; a Satellite Control Center; a Cybersecurity Operations Center; an Engineering Lab; and an advanced landing station providing secure communication links to the constellation.<\/p>\n

Telesat is investing about $5 billion total into its new Lightspeed LEO constellation, and just recently issued a $3 billion manufacturing prime contract to Thales Alenia Space<\/strong>. The initial constellation will be made up of 298 Ka-band satellites to provide global broadband internet service starting in the second half of 2024.  As part of the MoU with Qu\u00e9bec, Thales Alenia Space will establish the final manufacturing of the advanced Lightspeed satellites at an assembly, integration, and testing facility in the province and is in discussions with Qu\u00e9bec-based partners to plan the project.<\/p>\n

Telesat also selected Canadian space technology company MDA<\/strong> to manufacture the phased array antennas that will be incorporated into the Lightspeed satellites. MDA will also manufacture its Lightspeed components in Qu\u00e9bec.<\/p>\n

In total, Telesat said the MoU\u2019s resulting facilities and partnerships would create, \u201c600 high-paying STEM jobs, leverage Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s substantial aerospace expertise and infrastructure, and allow the province to harness the significant economic growth from the burgeoning New Space Economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Telesat project will raise the international profile of Qu\u00e9bec engineering and our space industry. It gives us a key position in the new, private-sector space race. This investment will boost our aerospace industry, which has suffered over the last year. Qu\u00e9bec is already a leader in the field, but with today\u2019s announcement, we show that we will do what it takes to remain a leader into the future,\u201d Pierre Fitzgibbon, the Qu\u00e9bec minister of Economy and Innovation, commented in the release.<\/p>\n

Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s $400 million investment will consist of $200 million in preferred equity and a $200 million loan. Telesat expects the MoU to be finalized in the coming months.<\/p>\n

In an exclusive Via Satellite<\/em> interview published to premium subscribers on Thursday, Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg called Lightspeed the biggest undertaking of his career. \u201cTelesat has invested billions and billions of dollars over 50 years in its fleet, but this single project is the biggest in our history \u2026 We\u2019re not going to spend $5 billion on a network that isn\u2019t absolutely kick ass.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The government of Qu\u00e9bec will invest 400 million Canadian dollars ($316 million) in Telesat\u2018s new Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation, Lightspeed. In return, Canadian satellite operator Telesat will invest CA$1.6 billion into Qu\u00e9bec by moving a \u201csignificant portion\u201d of Lightspeed manufacturing and operations to the Canadian province, according to the terms of the MoU agreement announced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}