Telesat’s Mount Jackson, Virginia, teleport. Photo: Telesat

Telesat has contracted Intellian to build 127 gateway antenna systems at landing stations for the Telesat Lightspeed constellation. Intellian will design, supply, install, and integrate its 4-meter gateway antenna system. 

According to the Wednesday announcement, each landing station will be equipped with multiple Intellian gateway antennas, as well as baseband, network, and control systems. These stations will route customer data to points-of-presence for telecom networks, internet, and cloud services, and will also facilitate private interconnections for customer networks.

Intellian CEO Eric Sung commented: “Our collaboration with Telesat has been exceptional, and the resulting gateway antenna systems are a fascinating addition to our portfolio. Seeing how our heritage and experience in delivering innovative design solutions transitioned over to gateway antennas has been very rewarding.” 

This contract comes after Intellian worked with Telesat on the company’s LEO demonstration satellites. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Telesat plans to launch the first Lightspeed satellites in mid-2026 and deliver services globally in 2027. MDA Space is building the satellites with a network of suppliers including Tesat optical terminals. Last year, Telesat ordered 14 launches from SpaceX and selected Aalyria’s Spacetime network management software.