On 30 July, Canadian FSS operator Telesat signed an design agreement with an industrial consortium made up of European manufacturer Thales Alenia Space and the American manufacturing of Maxar Technologies, SSL. These two companies have decided to pool resources to develop a design for the 117-satellite, Telesat LEO programme – consisting of the space segment, ground infrastructure and system integration.
This was followed on 1 Aug, by a second statement from Telesat announcing that they were also entertaining a system design from the second major European manufacturer, Airbus Defence and Space.
Telesat say they will select a prime contractor for the programme in “early-2019”.
