June 11, 2021 – As prime contractor for the construction of Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation, Thales Alenia Space is announcing today that the Optical Inter Satellite Links (OISL) on-board the Lightspeed satellites will be its advanced Optel-C product. Optical Inter Satellite Links will allow Lightspeed to provide global, mesh coverage around the world, including above the oceans and poles, with a high level of security for end-to-end services. Their use will optimize the ground segment with a lower number of gateway sites, more freedom on gateway locations, and the ability to deploy gateways incrementally as system loading increases. The initial Lightspeed space segment will be comprised of 298 satellites. Telesat’s constellation satellites will deliver multiple terabits per second across the globe for secure, low-latency, high-performing broadband professional services. The Optel-C product builds on more than 20 years’ experience from Thales Alenia Space in Switzerland in optical communications and space optoelectronics instruments covering engineering, design analysis and assembly integration & tests for opto-mechanics, electronics and photonics. The product consortium involves several partners in Italy, France, Canada, Switzerland and UK.