Telesat has made another inroad into the American defence market. Their wholly-owned U.S.-based subsidiary, Telesat Government Solutions, has announced that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ALL.SPACE to integrate their user terminals with the Telesat Lightspeed network.
This is the latest in a number of significant developments for Telesat’s U.S. defence- and national security-focused subsidiary. As covered in SpaceQ in April, they added U.S. Air Force veteran Col. Ronald Thompson Jr as their Vice President of Telesat Government Solutions Growth, as well as adding Charles “Chuck” Cynamon as President and Wayne Sullens as Senior Director of U.S. Government Programs.
All of them have significant experience with both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Defence sector. Telesat Government Solutions appears to be looking to leverage that to offer Telesat Lightspeed as a communications option for terrestrial defence assets.
Telesat Lightspeed is Telesat’s upcoming high-speed LEO constellation. The current plan is an initial constellation of 198 satellites, which will be built by MDA Space and launched by SpaceX starting in mid-2026. Viasat and other companies have already signed an agreement with Telesat to use the service, and Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg said that Telesat is “well positioned” to help Canada’s defence goals of northern sovereignty, NORAD modernization, and giving new capabilities to its allies.
Telesat Government Solutions, in turn, is looking to market Lightspeed’s capability to provide similar services to the United States, and this MoU would be the latest piece of that strategy.
Smart terminals connecting to Lightspeed
ALL.SPACE (formerly Isotropic Systems) produces “smart terminals”; essentially mobile satellite uplinks that are used on vehicles like mobile command posts, intel platforms, and combat and logistics vehicles. Their main two terminals at the moment are the “Hydra” series of terminals: the Hydra-2 dual-link terminal Ka-band, and the Hydra-4 multi-band terminal.
The terminals use digital beamforming to connect to multiple satellites simultaneously. The Hydra-2 connects to two Ka band satellites, and the Hydra-4 MillSatCom terminal combines a Hydra-2, Ku-band terminal and a global L-band antenna in a single chassis to connect to four satellites across a wide variety of bands. The approach makes them both more resistant to signal interruptions and more resistant to jamming.
As part of this approach, the ALL.SPACE Hydra terminals are also capable of connecting to entire different constellations at the same time; not just military constellations, but also commercial constellations like Starlink, ViaSat, and Amazon’s upcoming Kuiper. With this collaboration, Telesat Lightspeed will be added to ground personnel’s communications opinions as well.
Specifically, the release said that Telesat “will provide detailed Telesat Lightspeed network interface specifications” to facilitate the development of the terminals. “The companies will collaborate on joint customer use-case evaluations and field demonstrations utilizing Telesat’s LEO 3 demonstration satellite”, Telesat said, to ensure that the connections “achieve type certification and are fully operational when Telesat Lightspeed services commence in late 2027.”
The release said that the development efforts will include both the Hydra-2 and the Hydra-4 terminals. It will also include adding capabilities to already-deployed terminals, so that deployed vehicles already using Hydra MAX terminals can “seamlessly access Telesat Lightspeed in the future.”
Cynamon said that “as the Department of Defense pursues proliferated architectures for assured connectivity, secure, ruggedized multi-band and multi-orbit terminals provide increased flexibility and resiliency in the congested and contested battlespace”, adding that the combination of the Lightspeed network and the terminals “will increase operational advantage for the DoD in the digital battlespace.”
ALL.SPACE CEO Paul McCarter said that the collaboration “marks a powerful step forward”, adding that the addition of Lightspeed capabilities to their terminals “will give government and defense users a critical operational edge – enabling seamless, secure, and scalable communications across every domain.”