Telesat has announced that its new Telstar 18 VANTAGE high throughput satellite (HTS) is fully operational at 138 degrees East and has entered commercial service. Telstar 18 VANTAGE was launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on 10 September 2018 and will serve growing demand for mobility, enterprise, and telecom services across the Asia-Pacific region.
Built by Space Systems Loral (SSL), a Maxar Technologies company, Telstar 18 VANTAGE is the latest in a new generation of Telesat satellites with capacity optimized to serve the types of bandwidth intensive applications increasingly in demand by users worldwide. It replaces and expands on Telesat’s Telstar 18 satellite through extensive C-band capacity over Asia, Ku-band HTS spot beams over Indonesia and Malaysia, and five additional regional Ku-band beams.
The coverage of Telstar 18 VANTAGE reaches across Asia all the way to Hawaii – in both C and Ku-band – enabling direct connectivity between any point in Asia and the Americas. Its innovative Ku-band payloads of HTS spot beams and focused regional beams provide customers operating in Southeast Asia, Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, and the North Pacific Ocean with greater choice and flexibility in deploying high performing broadband networks.
“Telstar 18 VANTAGE is a state-of-the-art spacecraft that combines regional beams and high throughput spot beams to deliver superior performance and value to our growing base of Asian customers,” said Dan Goldberg, Telesat’s President and CEO. “The market’s favorable response to Telesat’s Telstar VANTAGE satellites confirms that their innovative payloads provide important advantages to our customers. With the start of Telstar 18 VANTAGE service, we are pleased to be bringing these capabilities to the Asia Pacific region.”
Telesat is a leading global satellite operator, providing reliable and secure satellite-delivered communications solutions worldwide to broadcast, telecom, corporate, and government customers. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, with offices and facilities around the world, the company’s state-of-the-art fleet consists of 17 GEO satellites, the Canadian payload on ViaSat-1 and one Phase 1 LEO satellite which is the start of Telesat’s planned global LEO satellite constellation that will offer low latency, high throughput broadband services. Telesat is also a leading technical consultant providing high value expertise and support to satellite operators, insurers, and other industry participants on a global basis. Privately held, Telesat’s principal shareholders are Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board and Loral Space & Communications Inc.
