Telesat Lightspeed LEO Satellite
Thales Alenia Space (Blackjack/SDA)
Small/medium-class LEO broadband satellite with optical inter-satellite links, built by Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for Telesat's Lightspeed constellation.
Technical specifications
- Constellation size
- 188 operational satellites plus 10 in-orbit spares (revised from original 298)
- Satellite mass class
- 700-750 kg
- Orbit altitude
- ~1,000 km
- Orbit configuration
- Polar and inclined orbital planes
- Optical inter-satellite links
- 4 per satellite (~1,200 across constellation)
- Beam capacity
- ~135,000 dynamically steerable multi-Gbit/s beams
- Constellation throughput
- up to 15 Tbit/s (full build) / ~10 Tbit/s (reduced build)
- Demonstrated latency
- 35 ms round-trip
- Launch vehicles
- Blue Origin New Glenn (~30 sats/launch), SpaceX Falcon 9 (15-16 to inclined orbit, ~13 to polar orbit)
About
Thales Alenia Space is prime contractor for Telesat’s Lightspeed low Earth orbit broadband constellation, building satellites in the 700-750 kg class that operate in polar and inclined orbital planes at roughly 1,000 km altitude. Each satellite carries active antennas capable of dynamically refocusing roughly 135,000 beams and four high-capacity optical inter-satellite links, giving the constellation a global mesh network with fiber-like round-trip latency (as low as 35 ms demonstrated). The programme traces back to a 2017-2018 Thales Alenia Space/Maxar (SSL) consortium that performed early LEO constellation system design work for Telesat, which DARPA separately evaluated for potential dual-use compatibility with its Blackjack optical inter-satellite-link demonstration; Thales Alenia Space itself has not been named as a bus contractor on DARPA Blackjack or SDA Tranche contracts.
Documentation
No public datasheet yet — request the datasheet / ICD from the supplier.
