MDA Space delivered its first complete commercial communications satellites to orbit on Saturday night, when eight replenishment spacecraft built for Globalstar Inc. lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 9:12 p.m. ET aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.
Globalstar confirmed separately that all eight satellites reached their intended orbit, are under its command and control and are performing normally. Both companies said commissioning has begun: the weeks of in-orbit testing and calibration a satellite goes through before it carries paying traffic.
The eight will replace aging spacecraft in a constellation with three distinct sets of users. It carries satellite messaging on mobile phones; the SPOT handheld messengers that hikers, boaters and lone workers use to send a location or call for help beyond cell range; and Globalstar’s machine-to-machine business, the asset trackers and remote sensors that report in from places just as remote. “The successful launch and deployment of these satellites is an important milestone for Globalstar and our customers around the world,” chief executive Paul Jacobs said in the operator’s own statement.
A first as prime
MDA Space is best known at home for robotics: the Canadarm and Canadarm2, Dextre, and now Canadarm3. It has built complete satellites before, too. It was prime contractor on the three RADARSAT Constellation Mission spacecraft, the supplier answerable to the customer for the whole system, and it owns and operates RADARSAT-2.
Those were government Earth observation missions, built in ones and threes. These eight are the first MDA Space has delivered as prime contractor on a commercial communications constellation.
“This program for Globalstar marked a major transformation in our design and high-volume satellite production process, enabling us to accelerate development and manufacturing,” chief executive Mike Greenley said in the release. He added that with the company’s new high-volume factory now running, “we are ramping up even further.”
The payloads were developed, integrated and tested in Montreal. The satellite buses — the structure, power and propulsion that carry a payload — came from Rocket Lab USA, which built all 17 at its Long Beach plant under a subcontract MDA Space awarded in 2022. The prime contract is Canadian; the customer, the money behind it and its pending buyer are all American.
The plant behind that work is being rebuilt around the ambition. MDA Space spent $145 million in the first half of this year doubling the capacity of its Montreal satellite factory and designing its own space-grade microchips, as it reported with its second-quarter results, and it now describes the expanded line as in operation.
From order to orbit
Globalstar ordered 17 satellites from MDA Space in February 2022 under a contract worth $415 million. SpaceQ reported at the time that they were to be finished in 2025 and launched by the end of that year.
The schedule has moved more than once since. On MDA Space’s third-quarter call in November, Greenley said nine satellites were “being completed and getting ready to be shipped out in early 2026 ready for launch.” The first eight flew in August. The rest are in the final stages of integration, MDA Space said Sunday, and neither company has given a date for the second launch.
Apple’s money, Amazon’s bid
Globalstar’s constellation is the one behind Emergency SOS and satellite messaging on recent iPhones. Apple financed most of the upgrade to that network and holds a fifth of the entity that will own Globalstar’s next-generation system.
Amazon was not the only party interested in the rest of it. Globalstar spent much of last year exploring a sale, and SpaceX was reported to be circling. It wants access to Globalstar’s licensed radio spectrum for Starlink’s own phone service. Globalstar told the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in December that Starlink should not be allowed to use that spectrum.
In April, Amazon agreed to buy Globalstar outright. The deal is set to close in 2027 and depends on regulatory approvals and on Globalstar meeting milestones with the very satellites MDA Space is building. The merger terms call them “HIBLEO-4 replacement satellite milestones,” after the international registration name for the existing constellation. Miss the operational targets and the price Amazon pays falls by as much as $US 110 million, roughly one per cent of the deal.
Amazon has said it will operate Globalstar’s existing fleet and the MDA-built satellites alongside Amazon Leo, its own broadband network, before deploying a direct-to-device system of its own. Direct-to-device means an ordinary phone connecting straight to a satellite, with no dish or terminal in between.
The bigger contract
The replenishment order is the smaller half of the relationship. In February 2025 Globalstar signed a $1.1 billion contract with MDA Space for more than 50 MDA Aurora satellites, a software-defined design whose payload can be reprogrammed once it is in orbit.
That order covers the C-3 system, Globalstar’s third-generation constellation of 48 working satellites and spares. Ground work for it runs partly through Canada: new Earth station antennas at High River, Alta., and Smiths Falls, Ont., are among about 90 that Globalstar is adding around the world.
Together the two orders come to about $1.5 billion. They also sit at the centre of what MDA Space is trying to prove: that it can build satellites in volume, on schedule, for buyers who have other places to go.
What to watch
The nine remaining satellites, and a date for their launch, are the next thing to look for. So is whether Globalstar clears the milestones written into Amazon’s offer before that deal closes — a schedule now resting in part on a factory in Montréal.
More SpaceQ coverage: MDA Space · Globalstar · Amazon Leo’s 5,105-satellite direct-to-device plan.