Will Canada’s Telesat really complete its Lightspeed constellation by 2028?
According to the most recent financial report from the Canadian satellite communications company Telesat, it expects its Lightspeed low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellation to be launched and operational by 2028.
During the first quarter, Telesat invested $171 million into the Lightspeed program, reflecting $19 million in operating expenses and $152 million in capital expenditures, bringing its total investment to date to approximately $2.7 billion.
The company reported advancing through several technical milestones in early 2026. “During the quarter, we held further design reviews with our satellite and launch vehicle dispenser manufacturers and progressed our work on user terminals, network and satellite operations software development, and ground station deployments,” noted Telesat President and CEO Dan Goldberg.
The company confirmed it remains fully funded, utilizing cash on hand and existing financing facilities, to reach full global commercial service around the end of the first quarter of 2028.
At the moment however the company has launched no satellites in this LEO constellation. Moreover, in a recent amendment to its FCC application, the company reduced the size of the constellation from 1,671 satellites to only 300, with no explanation.
We shall see what happens. My instincts sense a bit of blarney here. This constellation will likely launch, but I think the company’s proposed schedule is questionable.
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The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
According to the most recent financial report from the Canadian satellite communications company Telesat, it expects its Lightspeed low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellation to be launched and operational by 2028.
During the first quarter, Telesat invested $171 million into the Lightspeed program, reflecting $19 million in operating expenses and $152 million in capital expenditures, bringing its total investment to date to approximately $2.7 billion.
The company reported advancing through several technical milestones in early 2026. “During the quarter, we held further design reviews with our satellite and launch vehicle dispenser manufacturers and progressed our work on user terminals, network and satellite operations software development, and ground station deployments,” noted Telesat President and CEO Dan Goldberg.
The company confirmed it remains fully funded, utilizing cash on hand and existing financing facilities, to reach full global commercial service around the end of the first quarter of 2028.
At the moment however the company has launched no satellites in this LEO constellation. Moreover, in a recent amendment to its FCC application, the company reduced the size of the constellation from 1,671 satellites to only 300, with no explanation.
We shall see what happens. My instincts sense a bit of blarney here. This constellation will likely launch, but I think the company’s proposed schedule is questionable.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I don’t see it happening, either. The Nova Scotia “spaceport” will probably having rockets flying from its site before Lightspeed’s ever finished. (sarcasm = off)
I’m sure the reason this project was even commissioned was to be an unStarlink or unLeo.
My guess is that the capital expenditures included brand new operations center with large clean rooms, swanky conference rooms, and amenities galore.
How can they have spent so much money and launched nothing? How did they get funding without launching anything?
Is there some sort of inverse relationship between the name of some projects / missions and the decades it takes to complete?
The California “High Speed” Train.
The “Lightspeed” Constellation.
“How can they have spent so much money and launched nothing? How did they get funding without launching anything?”
They are in Canada and get government funding because nothing says “elbows up” like wasting taxpayer money when a perfectly viable commercial option is available in Starlink.
Joe:
Telesat is managing this project. I believe it had a control centre in the Ottawa area after it was established as a Crown corporation nearly 60 years ago and, since it owns many of the Canadian satellites in orbit, that place would still exist.
As for clean rooms and other such facilities, the old Spar Aerospace had a lot of those in a number of locations. For example, it had a satellite assembly plant in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue near Montreal. I think MD Space (based in Brampton, Ontario) eventually took over what was left of them after Spar was acquired and broken up.
As for money, this is Canada. Nowadays, there is an enormous bureaucracy that has to be dealt with. Just about every natural resources project can’t get started because it’s bogged down with regulations (e. g., “carbon footprint”) and “stakeholder” consultations and input. Then there are the DEI hoops to jump through.
I think you can figure out the rest.
Kevin:
Yup. And there are times when truly bad ideas get government funding. Two or three years ago, a company was started in Ontario to raise crickets as a replacement for meat and the government bankrolled it. Guess what went belly up last year?
Then there are those EV battery plants that received lavish government subsidies and tax breaks. One by one, many of them shut down.
BMJ,
Telesat may well join all of those other examples of failed Canadian “enterprises” you cited. Their most recent audit was evidently quite a horrorshow. I suspect that if Telesat can’t get anything on-orbit this year, it will just be one more financial smoking hole in the ground within a year.
Governments, in general, do not enjoy an enviable record as venture capitalists. The high water mark for such government-backed failures in the US was the Obama years. Canada, recently, may be doing even more poorly on a proportional basis. A few more years of Liberal government and Canada seems likely to descend further into quasi-failed-state status.