ARLINGTON, Va. — Telesat U.S. Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat, announced today it is now part of the Lockheed Martin team which was recently awarded the Space Transport Layer Tranche 0 contract by the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA).
Under the contract, the Lockheed Martin-led team will provide on-orbit delivery of 10 space vehicles with optical inter-satellite links (OISLs), contributing to a total of 20 satellites in Tranche 0.
Telesat’s role is to support a commercial interoperability exercise by working with Lockheed Martin to demonstrate interoperability between the OISLs of the SDA’s Transport Layer satellites and those of Telesat’s low Earth orbit (LEO) constellation. OISL technology is the enabler of vastly improved network security, resilience and performance in space communications networks, says the Telesat press release. The OISLs native to Telesat LEO satellites will be compatible with the SDA’s OISL standard for an assured, resilient and secure network, says the release.
As part of the project, Telesat will conduct hardware and software testing on its LEO emulator at Telesat’s U.S. government facility.
“With the Telesat LEO advanced space architecture, governments worldwide can leverage commercial innovations. This approach, underpinned by Telesat’s OISL expertise, will enable space network performance on par with terrestrial networks, helping Lockheed Martin and the SDA demonstrate how interoperability with the commercial space networks can effectively drive better results for government connectivity,” said Don Brown, general manager of government services at Telesat.
This project follows other U.S. government partnerships announced by Telesat, including exploring the future of space-based government communications with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA) Blackjack program and the U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) CASINO program.
