Farcast’s antenna technology held a live link to a Telesat test satellite in orbit, the companies said last Wednesday, clearing a milestone in a four-year-old partnership to build user terminals for the Ottawa company’s Lightspeed broadband constellation.
In the demonstration, Farcast’s shared-aperture terminal — an electronically steered antenna that sends and receives simultaneously through one panel instead of two, cutting the size, weight and cost of the hardware — established and held a connection through LEO 3, one of Telesat’s low Earth orbit test satellites, with the signal matching what engineers had predicted. That clears the way for the next phase: folding the antenna and the modem Telesat is building for Lightspeed into a single terminal.
The two companies have worked together since 2022. Telesat formalized the relationship last November, investing about $6.9 million ($US 5 million) in the San Francisco startup and taking a board seat, with Farcast committing to a production-ready terminal by 2027.
Farcast, founded in 2019 by chief executive Siamak Ebadi, has also drawn strategic investment from Gogo, the in-flight connectivity company, which put an undisclosed sum into Farcast in December to adapt the same antenna for aviation. Farcast has raised about $32.5 million ($US 23.6 million) since its founding, according to Gogo’s investment announcement.
“The results mark an important step in validating Farcast’s underlying antenna technology,” Telesat chief technology officer Michel Forest said in a statement. Ebadi said Farcast is “excited to build on this foundation as we move into modem integration and toward production for Telesat Lightspeed.”
The news release does not say whether Farcast’s 2027 production target still holds, or when the integrated terminal will be ready to test.
Telesat now expects Lightspeed commercial service to begin in early 2028, after expanding the constellation to 225 satellites this summer following a $2.7-billion Arctic defence contract. The first Lightspeed satellites are still due to launch before the end of the year.