Telesat acquired three tracts of land in Canada as it readies for the first Telesat Lightspeed launch as soon as December.
The company bought land in Estevan, Saskatchewan and Papineauville, Quebec, and leased land in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, for new landing stations to support the Lightspeed network. Quebec’s landing station should be completed in Q3, while the two Saskatchewan sites will be ready around the end of 2026, according to Telesat.
The three ground stations will “route data between the Telesat Lightspeed Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network and major fibre and internet exchange points,” officials wrote in a March 10 release, emphasizing that the spread between the sites is meant to make them “geographically diverse” for resiliency and performance – especially with regards to sovereignty purposes.
“Telesat is rapidly advancing the global buildout of the terrestrial infrastructure that will be fully integrated with our LEO satellites, and these Quebec and Saskatchewan sites are playing pivotal roles in that progress,” Asit Tandon, Telesat’s chief network and information officer, said in the statement.
“These strategically located facilities strengthen connectivity across Canada, and contribute to the worldwide terrestrial foundation we are establishing ahead of our first satellite launch in December.”
The initial Lightspeed constellation has 198 satellites; the build experienced delays and scope adjustments in the last few years. Changes were made to reduce the number of initial satellites to help contain soaring costs due to inflation and supply chain shortages due to the pandemic.
Telesat also switched over its prime manufacturer to MDA Space and successfully obtained more government financing to cover much of the cost of the constellation, which is now at about US$3.5 billion. (Telesat and its vendors are covering the remainder.)
Telesat is aiming to use Lightspeed to service government and institutional customers, to differentiate itself from more consumer-focused satellite networks – most especially SpaceX Starlink.
The company is also framing itself as a solution for a newer push on Canadian sovereignty and defense solutions as newer global competitors emerge, especially Blue Origin’s just-announced TeraWave satellite communications network targeted at enterprise, data center, and government users.
Telesat has yet to announce when its fiscal 2025 results will be released; its third-quarter results were announced on Nov. 4, more than four months ago. The company also said in late January that some creditors with legacy geostationary satellite debt “filed lawsuits in New York and Ontario regarding the equity distribution in September 2025 of the Telesat Lightspeed business.”
The equity distribution, announced in September, was completed with 62% of Telesat’s equity of Telesat Lightspeed distributed to “an indirect subsidiary of Telesat Corporation” owned by parent entities of Telesat. The subsidiary is also a non-guarantor for Telesat Canada’s debt documents. As for the lawsuit, allegations have not been proven in court.