TAMPA, Fla. — Telesat plans to carve out 25% of its Lightspeed broadband constellation for military Ka-band as the program’s latest delay pushes global service into early 2028, creating more room to align the design with shifting geopolitical priorities.
The Canadian operator announced plans March 17 to add 500 megahertz of Mil-Ka to Lightspeed’s initial 156 satellites, replacing the same amount of commercial Ka-band frequencies on the network’s user link.
“The geopolitical environment is driving once-in-a-generation increases in defense investments by allied countries globally,” Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg said during the company’s earnings call, citing growing demand for mission-critical communications from low Earth orbit (LEO).
Goldberg said substantially increasing the global supply of Mil-Ka band would enable Lightspeed to outperform legacy geostationary systems that rely on protected Ka-band spectrum.
“It will be more resilient, more secure, more high throughput and lower latency,” he added, “and it’ll cover the entire planet — including the poles, which means, of course, the Arctic.”
Because Mil-Ka sits adjacent to commercial Ka-band, Goldberg said the change would have a modest cost of about $25 million, or less than half a percent of the total cost of the 156 satellites currently being built by Canada’s MDA Space.
The plan, which requires regulatory approval from Canada and the International Telecommunication Union, also does not affect links to the gateways Telesat has begun deploying.
Military upgrades
Glenn Katz, Telesat’s chief commercial officer, said the move would “deliver significantly more capacity than all Mil-Ka in orbit today,” and aligns with increasing data requirements of NATO members and allied defense partners.
According to Katz, the shift would also not displace aviation, maritime and other commercial services.
“We still have massive amounts of global commercial Ka- capacity to meet the requirements of our target markets,” Katz said via email, “with no modifications to our stringent SLAs [service level agreements].
“And our advanced system architecture with digital payloads can dynamically allocate capacity to areas of high demand.”
Katz also noted Telesat plans to expand the constellation over time in line with customer demand.
He said Telesat began engaging with MDA in mid-2025 to initiate design work required to implement the changes on the payload.
“This early engagement mitigated potential schedule slips,” he said.
While Lightspeed was initially designed to meet stringent government requirements using commercial Ka-band, adding dedicated Mil-Ka could improve interoperability with military systems that use the protected spectrum.
Supply chain issues
On the earnings call, Goldberg said Lightspeed’s latest delay stems from the readiness of chips needed to power satellite processors and phased-array antennas.
The chips were originally developed by Israel’s SatixFy, which MDA bought last year in a move Goldberg said would fortify supplies.
“We’re tracking the development of these chips pretty forensically,” he said, “and based on that and the assurances we’re getting from MDA, we feel good that the chips will be available in time to support the program schedule.”
Telesat picked MDA in 2023 to build a total 198 satellites for the constellation, with SpaceX launches slated to begin in mid-2026, six years later than originally planned for its expansion out of geostationary orbit (GEO).
The operator had delayed selecting a manufacturer until 2021 to secure better component pricing, initially choosing Thales Alenia Space before pandemic-related supply chain issues at the European company derailed the project.
Goldberg said Telesat still plans to deploy the first two Lightspeed pathfinder satellites in December 2026, with serial launches set to get underway from mid-2027.
He said the company expects to have about 96 satellites in orbit by the end of 2027, enough for initial global coverage, although orbit-raising and testing are now expected to push full commercial service into the first quarter of 2028.
On the defense
Underlining a growing government opportunity for Lightspeed, Goldberg pointed to the company’s Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract under the SHIELD program in the United States, a procurement vehicle tied to the country’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative.
Canada also recently picked Telesat and MDA to explore options for a multibillion-dollar military communications network to support the Canadian Armed Forces in the Arctic.
Early this year, Telesat announced it is collaborating with South Korea’s Hanwha Systems on potential defense satellite networks and compatible user terminals.
Financial pressures
The doubling down on defense comes as Telesat’s earnings results for 2025 highlighted ongoing declines in its legacy GEO TV and broadband businesses.
Revenue fell 27% year-over-year to 418 million Canadian dollars ($305 million), driven by losses among North American satellite TV customers and lower sales from enterprises serving rural broadband markets.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the year dropped 45% to 213 million Canadian dollars.
Telesat expects GEO revenue to decline further to between 300 million and 320 million Canadian dollars in 2026.
Meanwhile, the operator projects total spending on Lightspeed of between 1 billion and 1.2 billion Canadian dollars over the year ahead.
At the end of 2025, Telesat reported about 1 billion Canadian dollars in backlog for Lightspeed and expects that figure to grow significantly as it converts government demand into contracts.
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