Telesat Teams with
Lockheed Martin on Space Development Agency
Transport Layer
October 20, 2020
Telesat U.S. Services, a wholly owned
subsidiary of leading global satellite operator
Telesat, 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). 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. As part of
this team, Telesat will support a commercial
interoperability exercise by working with the
Lockheed Martin team to demonstrate
interoperability between the OISLs of the SDA’s
Transport Layer satellites and those of
Telesat’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation.
The OISLs native to Telesat LEO will be
compatible with the SDA’s OISL standard for an
assured, resilient and secure network.
OISL technology is the enabler of
vastly improved network security, resilience and
performance in any space communications network.
As a commercial OISL leader, Telesat will work
with Lockheed Martin to explore interoperability
of the SDA Space Transport Layer Tranche 0
satellites with the Telesat LEO network.
“Lockheed Martin took a visionary
approach to their SDA Transport Layer team,
incorporating commercial space solutions to
provide the U.S. government greater
communications system resiliency and
flexibility. We’re proud to bring Telesat’s
system engineering expertise to the team,” said
Don Brown, General Manager of Government
Services at Telesat. “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.”
As part of the project, Telesat will
conduct hardware and software testing on their
LEO emulator at Telesat’s U.S. Government
facility.
This project comes on the heels of
numerous government partnerships for 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,
Space and Missile Systems Center’s (SMC) CASINO
program.
Through these partnerships, Telesat
continues to showcase the possibilities of
Telesat LEO in supporting government efforts and
meeting the U.S. Government’s unique unilateral
requirements, including offering true global
connectivity throughout the polar regions.