Telstar-19V satellite built by SSL (Maxar Technologies)

Telstar-19V satellite built by SSL (Maxar Technologies)

Telstar-19V (Telstar 19 VANTAGE) has a two high throughput payloads, one in Ku-band and the other in Ka-band. The satellite is based on the SSL-1300 bus. With a launch mass of 7,075 kg, Telstar-19V is the heaviest commercial satellite so far.

Satellite operator Telesat signed a contract with Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) in November 2015 for the construction of the satellite. Telstar-19V is the second of a new generation of Telesat satellites optimized to serve the types of bandwidth intensive applications increasingly being used across the satellite industry.

Hughes Network Systems, LLC (Hughes) has made a significant commitment to utilize the satellite’s high throughput Ka-band capacity in South America to expand its broadband satellite services. The satellite has additional high throughput Ka-band capacity over Northern Canada, the Caribbean and the North Atlantic Ocean. It will also provide high throughput and conventional Ku-band capacity over Brazil, the Andean region and the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Telstar-19V satellite will be co-located with Telesat’s Telstar-14R at 63° West, a prime orbital slot for coverage of the Americas. The satellite was launched on July 2nd 2018 on a Falcon-9 v1.2 rocket, operated by launch operator SpaceX.

Telesat Inc. (formerly Telesat Canada, Inc) is a satellite operator headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario in Canada. The company was founded in 1969 and has offices in the USA, Brazil and the UK. Telesat owns a fleet of 15 satellites and operates 13 additional satellites for other entities.

Telesat is, after Intelsat, SES and Eutelsat, the fourth-largest fixed satellite services provider in the world. Telesat was originally jointly owned by the federal government and the Canadian telecommunications consortium, Stentor Canadian Network Management. In 1992, the federal government sold its stake in Telesat Canada to Alouette Telecommunications, Ltd, a company jointly owned by Stentor, including Bell, and Spar Aerospace. Bell completed the acquisition of Telesat in 1998, when it acquired 100% ownership of Telesat. In 2007 Loral Space & Communications along with Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board acquired Telesat for 2.8 billion USD, with Loral owning 62.7% of Telesat.

Telesat carries Canada’s two major DBS providers signals: Bell TV and Shaw Direct, as well as more than 200 of Canada’s television channels.