Published September 11, 2023 This article was published more than 1 year ago. Some information may no longer be current. Share Future of Canadian space company Telesat uncertain as concerns rise over ability to pay off debts Shares in Telesat fell 5.3 per cent to $21.99, after rising as much as 3.2 per cent in early trading. Telesat last month said it would save US$2-billion by awarding Canada’s MDA Ltd the contract to build 198 satellites. In 2021, Thales Alenia Space had been given the contract. “COVID hit, and supply chain issues hit, and inflation hit,” and Thales told Telesat about two years ago it could no longer meet the agreed price and schedule, Mr. Goldberg said. The SpaceX contract for the 14 launches “gives us scope to expand the constellation above and beyond the 198 [satellites] that we’ve committed to with MDA,” Mr. Goldberg said. Telesat is moving into the competitive new realm of LEO networks with the aim to service so-called enterprise customers who include mobile operators, governments, aircraft and shipping companies. Most of the LEO competition – which includes SpaceX and its Starlink constellation and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and its Project Kuiper – is focused on the consumer market. Satellite constellations have sapped large amounts of the U.S. launch supply in recent years with large bulk launch orders like Telesat’s SpaceX contract. Amazon AMZN-Q in 2022 bagged the biggest commercial launch deal in history for 83 missions across multiple launch companies to deploy its Kuiper network. SpaceX aims to nearly double its annual launch rate in 2023 thanks to its growing Starlink constellation. Please enable JavaScript to view this content.