Telesat (TSAT) Q2 2026 Earnings Call: Lightspeed Backlog Hits $5.6 Billion

Key Takeaways

• Telesat reported Q2 2026 consolidated revenue of $79 million, adjusted EBITDA of $22 million and a net loss of $559 million.
• The net loss included a $475 million increase in the fair value of Telesat Lightspeed warrants, alongside the impact of a weaker Canadian dollar on U.S. dollar-denominated debt.
• Telesat Lightspeed contractual backlog increased to approximately $5.6 billion, largely driven by the initial 15-year ESCP-P contract with the Government of Canada.
• The fully funded Lightspeed constellation was expanded from 156 to 225 satellites. Management continues to expect global commercial service around the end of Q1 2028.
• GEO revenue fell 26% year over year to $78 million, primarily due to broadcast contract expirations and renewals at lower capacity and rates. GEO backlog nevertheless rose to $900 million.
• Management reiterated 2026 GEO guidance while raising Lightspeed investment guidance to CAD 1.3 billion–CAD 1.5 billion following the constellation expansion.

Key Financial Data

Business and Operating Performance

Telesat Lightspeed

Telesat signed a firm contract with MDA for 69 additional satellites, increasing the committed constellation to 225 identical satellites. The company has 14 of the estimated 15 required Falcon 9 launches under contract and said SpaceX has agreed to make the final rocket available, subject to completion of the launch services agreement.

Management expects all 225 satellites to be launched by the end of 2028. It said the additional satellites will not delay deployment of the initial 156 or the planned start of global commercial service around the end of Q1 2028.

The expansion restores commercial capacity after 25% of the original frequency allocation was redirected to Military Ka-band. Management also cited greater resiliency, redundancy and network performance as benefits of the larger constellation.

Lightspeed had more than $200 million of cash at quarter-end. The company said this cash, $1.6 billion available under Lightspeed financing, USD 325 million of vendor financing and USD 1.5 billion of ESCP-P milestone payments are expected to fully fund the project, including USD 500 million of contingencies.

GEO Segment

GEO revenue declined mainly because a Nimiq 4 service contract expired in 2025 and a Nimiq 5 renewal involved lower capacity and rates. Enterprise revenue also decreased following the October 2025 renewal of the Xplore contract. New aviation connectivity contracts partly offset these pressures.

Satellite utilization was 60% at the end of Q2. Excluding the retirement of Telstar 14R and Anik F4, utilization declined approximately two percentage points from Q1. Telesat transferred nearly half of the retired satellites’ traffic to other GEO assets, but management expects the retirements to remain a headwind.

GEO backlog increased to $900 million, primarily because of a five-year extension of a broadcast services contract. GEO cash totaled approximately $160 million at quarter-end, before the newly announced USD 120 million term loan.

Telesat is also eligible for USD 189 million of incentive payments under the FCC’s C-band spectrum repurposing order, subject to clearing the spectrum before transition deadlines in 2030 and 2031.

Management Guidance

• 2026 GEO revenue: $300 million–$320 million.
• 2026 GEO adjusted EBITDA: $210 million–$230 million, excluding debt refinancing and related litigation expenditure.
• 2026 Lightspeed investment: CAD 1.3 billion–CAD 1.5 billion, raised from CAD 1.0 billion–CAD 1.2 billion.
• Lightspeed commercial availability: Management continues to target global commercial service around the end of Q1 2028.
• Lightspeed backlog: Management expects backlog to be meaningfully higher by the end of 2027 as sovereign and commercial opportunities potentially convert into firm contracts.

Risks and Watch Items

• GEO revenue remains under pressure from broadcast nonrenewals, renewals at lower rates and capacity, reduced fixed broadband services and satellite retirements.
• Refinancing costs reduced GEO profitability, while upcoming GEO debt maturities remain a key management priority. The company said it is focused on reaching a consensual refinancing outcome before maturity.
• The timing of additional defense and sovereign contracts remains uncertain, despite management describing the pipeline as significant.
• The first 225 Lightspeed satellites cannot accommodate design changes or additional frequency bands without substantial delays. Any new bands or hosted payloads would apply to future generations.
• Receipt of the USD 189 million in C-band incentives depends on Telesat fulfilling its spectrum-clearing obligations on time.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

• ESCP-P scope: Lightspeed will provide the Military Ka-band component. MDA is expected to lead the separate MEO-based UHF and X-band capability, with Telesat contributing network integration and ground-segment expertise as a subcontractor.
• Space relay opportunity: Telesat said Lightspeed could relay data from other satellites to users in near real time. The company is demonstrating the capability with NASA and sees potential across defense, civil and space-based data-center applications.
• Direct-to-device: Management said D2D is not a principal focus but Telesat could participate opportunistically if it adds value without distracting from Lightspeed execution.
• Pricing assumptions: The updated Lightspeed plan reflects a larger government and defense mix. Management said it refreshed pricing, adoption and geographic assumptions while retaining modeled price pressure over time.
• Ground infrastructure: At least eight teleports or landing stations are in various stages of development. Telesat remains open to using third-party providers where this accelerates deployment and meets security requirements.
• Refinancing: Management rejected the suggestion that it was considering a bankruptcy filing and reiterated that its focus is a fair, balanced and consensual refinancing of legacy debt.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Jordan, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Telesat Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the call over to James Ratcliffe, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

James Ratcliffe

Thank you, Jordan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Earlier this morning, we filed our quarterly report for the period ending June 30, 2026 on Form 6-K with the SEC and on SEDAR+.

Our remarks today may contain forward-looking statements. There are risks that Telesat's actual results may differ materially from the results contemplated by the forward-looking statements as a result of known and unknown risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of known risks, please see Telesat's annual report and updates filed with the SEC. Telesat assumes no responsibility to update or revise these forward-looking statements.

I would now like to turn the call over to Dan Goldberg, Telesat's President and Chief Executive Officer.

Daniel Goldberg

Okay. Thanks, James, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'll start with a few words about the business and then I'll hand the call over to Donald to speak to the numbers in more detail. And we'll then open the call up to questions.

Just last week, we announced we signed the first contract in the ESCP-P program, and we're very pleased to have secured that key strategic opportunity to provide such a critical capability to the Canadian Armed Forces, to support the range of important missions and interest that they have and that Canada has in the Arctic.

With that contract announced and an expanded Lightspeed constellation fully funded for an accelerated rollout, we're very well positioned to execute on the wide range of additional opportunities for Lightspeed that we're now engaged on, including in the defense and government segments, allowing us to build on our already substantial $5.6 billion Telesat Lightspeed contractual backlog. Our strong confidence in our future prospects caused us to raise our publicly available revenue and EBITDA forecast for Lightspeed, which I hope you all saw last week.

In addition to the strong commercial traction we're getting, we've also been making excellent progress on the technical and operations fronts for Lightspeed. On the constellation development side of things, we signed a firm contract with MDA for 69 additional satellites, bringing the fully funded and committed constellation size to 225 satellites. We've secured almost all the launch capacity we need and expect to sign an agreement for the final Falcon 9 rocket required to complete the deployment of the 225 satellite constellation in the near future, and we continue to expect global commercial availability in the first quarter of 2028.

In light of the expansion of the constellation, you may have noticed in today's earnings release that we updated our 2026 Lightspeed total investment guidance for 2026, which includes both OpEx and CapEx associated with delivering the global network. Our prior guidance was CAD 1 billion to CAD 1.2 billion of investment this year, which we've now brought up to CAD 1.3 billion to CAD 1.5 billion, a $300 million increase to the bottom and top end of the range.

In our GEO segment, first quarter (sic) [ second quarter ] results came in largely as we had expected, with most of the year-over-year decline coming from nonrenewals and lower revenue renewals in our broadcast activities and, to a lesser extent, in reductions in services for fixed broadband customers. That was partially offset by new contracts for broadband services for commercial airline broadband connectivity.

As you may have noticed, our GEO backlog increased during the quarter, due primarily to a meaningful term extension of one of our broadcast contracts, evidence of our continued efforts to maximize the value of our existing GEO satellites, lock in long-term commitments where we can to improve cash flow visibility in the legacy business, all while retaining careful cost controls to mitigate the impact of ongoing revenue pressures in the GEO segment.

During the quarter, 2 of our GEO satellites, Anik F4 and Telstar 14R, reached the end of their useful lives and were retired from service. While we've been able to transfer nearly half the traffic from these satellites onto certain of our remaining GEO satellites, the decommissioning of these satellites will still be a headwind for the balance of this year and into the future. We had anticipated this impact, we knew that these satellites were going to be retired this year, when we provided our GEO segment guidance for 2026. And we're reiterating that revenue and EBITDA guidance today.

Staying with our GEO segment, we were pleased to see late last month the FCC's Report and Order to repurpose 160 megahertz of C-band satellite spectrum for terrestrial wireless use. Under the terms of the Report and Order, Telesat is due to receive USD 189 million in incentive payments for our role in freeing up that valuable spectrum. We're actively working to develop a plan to ensure that the spectrum is cleared prior to transition deadlines in 2030 and 2031. We successfully cleared C-band spectrum in the prior FCC C-band reallocation proceeding, and we're confident we'll be successful this time as well.

Lastly for Telesat GEO, we've entered into a new term loan agreement with a third-party lender for USD 120 million to be used for general corporate purposes. These new funds will provide Telesat with greater financial resources to support our legacy business. We remain heavily focused on the upcoming Telesat GEO debt maturities and achieving a fair and balanced, consensual outcome for all of our stakeholders.

So with that, I'll hand over to Donald, who will speak to the numbers in more detail. And then we'll open the call up to questions.

Donald Tremblay

Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. My prepared remarks today will focus on highlights from this morning's press release and filings.

In the second quarter of 2026, we reported consolidated revenue of $79 million, adjusted EBITDA of $22 million and net loss of $559 million. Consolidated net loss for the quarter was impacted by an increase of $475 million in the fair value of Telesat Lightspeed warrants and the weakening of Canadian dollar during the quarter impacting the value of our U.S. dollar-denominated debt. The warrants are now valued at more than $1.3 billion, reflecting the expansion of the constellation to 225 satellites and our ability to accelerate the execution of our plan.

Interest expense for the quarter totaled $50 million, down $54 million in the second quarter of 2025, due to a lower interest rate on our term loan. Interest relating to the Telesat Lightspeed totaling $18 million during the second quarter of 2026 was capitalized to the project, compared to $8 million for the same period last year, as the amount outstanding on the Telesat Lightspeed financing has increased to $974 million at the end of the quarter, including capitalized interest of $54 million.

Our GEO segment results were in line with our expectations during Q2. We generated $78 million in revenue, down 26% or $28 million compared to the same period last year. For the year (sic) [ six-month period ], revenue of our GEO business segment was $164 million, also down 26% from last year. The majority of the revenue decline during the quarter and for the year was in our broadcast segment, driven by the expiration of contract for service on our Nimiq 4 satellite in 2025 and lower capacity and rate as part of the renewal of contract on Nimiq 5.

In our enterprise segment, the decline was primarily driven by lower revenue from our Xplore contract renewed in October 2025. These declines were partially offset by new contracts added in 2025 in our aviation vertical by our global commercial team.

The utilization of our satellites was 60% at the end of Q2. I'll note that this utilization figure benefits from the retirement of our Telstar 14R and Anik F4 satellites during the quarter. If we adjust for these retirements, utilization declined about 2 percentage points from the end of Q1.

The backlog of our GEO segment rose to $900 million at the end of June, due in large part to the extension of one of our broadcast service contract for 5 years during the quarter.

Adjusted EBITDA for our GEO segment was $43 million for the second quarter, down $37 million compared to last year, driven by lower revenue and higher expense related to our debt refinancing process. Our second quarter 2026 results include approximately $14 million in costs related to our debt refinancing, up approximately $7 million compared to the same period last year.

Adjusting for this expense, our GEO adjusted EBITDA would have been $57 million during the period, down 30% from last year. For the year, adjusted EBITDA totaled $119 million, after excluding expense relating to our refinancing process.

As a result of this performance for the first half of 2026, we are reiterating our GEO business segment guidance for the year of revenue of $300 million to $320 million and adjusted EBITDA of $210 million to $230 million, excluding debt refinancing and related litigation expenditure.

Turning to the cash and liquidity position of our GEO business segment. Cash at the end of Q2 was approximately $160 million. And we announced today we borrowed USD 120 million under a new term loan, providing meaningful additional cash for Telesat GEO. We invested $165 million in the Telesat Lightspeed program during the second quarter of 2026, including $145 million in capital expenditure and $20 million in noncapitalized labor and other operating costs, for a total investment of $336 million this year.

Given the accelerated expansion of the constellation deployment from 156 to 225 satellites we announced last week, we now expect full year investment in the program to be between $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion, up from $1 billion to $1.2 billion guidance we provided earlier this year, with the incremental investment funded by pre-service milestone payment to be received from the Government of Canada.

In the LEO segment, we ended the quarter with over $200 million in cash on hand. This cash, combined with $1.6 billion in availability under our Telesat Lightspeed financing, USD 325 million from our vendor financing and USD 1.5 billion in milestone payment related to the ESCP-P contract, is expected to fully fund the Telesat Lightspeed project, including USD 500 million of contingencies, until it achieves global commercial service around the end of Q1 of 2028.

Our backlog for Lightspeed increased significantly to approximately $5.6 billion, with the increase coming largely from the 15-year initial ESCP-P contract we announced last week. We also signed a 5-year contract with Northwestel in early Q2 for rural broadband connectivity in Canada.

Before I conclude my prepared remarks, I would like to confirm that we are in compliance with all covenants in our credit agreements and indenture. I'll now turn the call back to the operator for the Q&A. Thank you.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Caleb Henry from Quilty Space.

Question-and-Answer Session

Caleb Henry

First question is actually on the future expansion of Lightspeed contract -- or excuse me, Lightspeed constellation. On the previous call, it was mentioned that there was going to be X and UHF band, which you're partnered with MDA on. Can you talk about the role that Telesat is playing as a partner there? Is that capacity that you also anticipate being able to sell? Or is Telesat mainly managing the constellation on behalf of the Canadian government?

Daniel Goldberg

Caleb, so maybe just a quick step back on ESCP-P, and we've talked a little bit about this before, it's all about Arctic satellite communications capability. There's a Military Ka-band component of that. And as we've announced before, that's going to be provided using Lightspeed, and we've expanded the constellation to meet those requirements. So that's number one.

Number two is there will be also a UHF and X-band capability. That is expected to be in MEO. That is a constellation that will be primed by MDA, and Telesat will be a subcontractor to MDA. And so there's still more work that needs to be done on that. More work with the Government of Canada, DND, the Canadian Air Force, to define exactly what that capability is going to look like, and contracts need to be in place. We've got a teaming agreement with MDA on that. Telesat and MDA have been already, and we announced this a while ago, named as kind of the strategic partners for that capability.

It's not my expectation that we're going to end up owning that MEO constellation. Would we have some ability to resell excess capacity on it? I don't know. That's not something that we've explored at this point in time.

And it's going to take a little while from here. We've got to do definition work and whatnot. I think at a minimum, what Telesat will be doing in connection with the MEO constellation, again, as a subcontractor to MDA, is providing network integration expertise, ground segment expertise. Overall, ESCP-P integration, you've got the Mil Ka, you've got the UHF, you've got the X-band, that's all got to operate as an integrated network.

So in any event, I do think it's a meaningful opportunity for Telesat. When we talked about the ESCP-P contract that we announced just last week, we were pretty clear that's an initial contract. We expect follow-on contracts probably next year for even still the Military Ka-band, that it will be more about network integration, user terminals and other ground segment. And that we expect to be a meaningful set of contracts for us.

And then on MEO, that work is going to take probably a couple of years to get in place. But here again, our expectation is we'll have a long-term role in supporting that constellation, and that there -- and that that represents a very material revenue opportunity for the company. So I hope that's helpful.

Caleb Henry

That is. And then my one follow-up, also harking back to last week's call. The presentation had a couple of mentions of relay as an emerging service area. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that forecast for relay revenue and sort of when you see that turning on and some of the drivers.

Daniel Goldberg

Yes. So when we talk about space relay, that's really about leveraging the Lightspeed constellation to communicate with other satellites. Those could be satellites -- earth observation, for instance. And we have the ability to connect those satellites into our global backbone.

So many of those satellites today, they're taking images, they're collecting data. But the user, the end user, has to wait for the satellite to pass over a gateway that that data gets downloaded. And only then is it available to the end user.

We can get that data back to the users in real time. If that satellite is connected to the Lightspeed constellation, it can collect the data, it can instantly relay that data to Lightspeed and we can terminate that traffic anywhere on the face of the earth in milliseconds. And so we think that's very powerful.

We're already doing work with NASA to demonstrate this capability. And we've disclosed that NASA contract before. And we've been engaged with quite a few potential customers for this, earth observation companies, other governments. Governments have a lot of those satellites in orbit collecting valuable data with -- and they want access to that information as fast as possible.

So when -- oh, and I should also say that our optical inter-satellite links meet the U.S. government's SDA standard. And so that opens up, we think, a big opportunity because other operators will have their optical links also meeting those standards, which means we can pass traffic to one another.

So and you've seen our forecast that revenue ramps, I don't have it in front of me, it sort of ramps gradually. But we're bullish on that opportunity for defense applications, for civil applications. We think there's great promise there.

And certainly, when you hear others talk about data centers in space, that's another opportunity. If there are data centers in space, you got to get that -- it needs to be connected back to the earth. And so when we think about space relay, it covers a pretty wide range of applications that we're quite bullish on.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Edison Yu from Deutsche Bank.

Xin Yu

First, I want to ask you about your latest thoughts regarding D2D. You probably saw MDA address the space RAN proposal. Is that something that you would take part in? Have you had discussions around a potential role in operating such a constellation?

Daniel Goldberg

So I'd say this on D2D, and maybe the first thing I'd say is we're very, very focused right now on executing on Lightspeed. It's the biggest project in Telesat's history. It's the biggest project -- space project in Canada's history. And we see a huge opportunity there. But we need to stay focused on executing that, and we are.

But that said, we're pretty well acquainted with what the various operators around the world, and here in Canada, are doing around D2D. We've had conversations with a number of parties about what role Telesat could potentially play in a D2D constellation.

And so anyway, I won't offer any more specifics than that, other than to say it's not in any sense our principal area of focus. But opportunistically, if we can play a role in a D2D network where we can add value, that can be accretive to Telesat, doesn't distract us from our top priorities, yes, that's something that we would think about.

Xin Yu

Understood. Wanted to also ask you, just going back to Lightspeed. Obviously, you put out those numbers, which were very positive. Can you maybe talk about the underlying assumptions a bit more? Outside of the big change in mix to government and military, did you have a lot of movement in terms of like the pricing assumptions, the price per bit, kind of -- yes, just can you maybe kind of double-click on just some of the underlying assumptions that went into those forecasts that may have changed versus 3 years ago?

Daniel Goldberg

Yes. I would say, fundamentally, there's certainly been, as you noted, a meaningful change in mix. When we first started down the path of Lightspeed, the world was a pretty different place than it is today. And these geopolitical shifts and some of these conflicts that are ongoing around the world have opened up this very significant opportunity for defense and kind of sovereign requirements to respond to that. And to respond to what the Government of Canada was needing for their ESCP-P program, we changed our frequency plan to add the Military Ka-band.

And so in any event, so that in and of itself has a big impact on our expectations around revenue mix because, obviously, the Mil Ka is going to be used for those government, defense and sovereignty applications.

Beyond that though, yes, we updated all the assumptions, obviously, underpinning the plan with respect to pricing, with respect to take-up, with respect to geographic distribution and whatnot. But there were not, I would say, wholesale changes in terms of our expectations around the pricing environment.

We know that the market for satellite delivered broadband connectivity is going to be a competitive market. We always knew that. We've modeled downward price pressure over time throughout the plan. We did that previously. That's still embedded in our current plan. We sort of sharpened our pricing assumptions, in some instances down, in some instances up, based on kind of the more current information that we have. So anyway, that's how we went about doing it. And yes, I hope that was helpful.

Xin Yu

Yes. If I could just sneak in just one financial one. Just in terms of the -- obviously, you got the extra debt. Any update on when we can expect any sort of update on the near-term maturity just in terms of the negotiations and how -- what you think about that?

Daniel Goldberg

Yes. Here's what I'd say about that. And obviously, and everyone on this call knows it, we're limited in terms of what we're able to say about the upcoming maturities. But what I can say is it remains a key priority, it always has been throughout the year.

Our focus working with our advisers is to reach consensual outcome with the legacy lenders prior to the maturities coming due. That's something that we're very focused on. And doing it in a way that's, yes, fair and balanced for all the stakeholders of the business, including, obviously, the lenders.

So that's what our focus has been. Our focus remains that. Just given the nature of these kinds of processes, there's only so much that we can say about it. And obviously, as soon as we have a material update that we can share, we will. But that's kind of the status at this point.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dave McFadgen from ATB.

David McFadgen

A couple of questions, if I may. So I see that you increased the warrant valuation quite a bit. I was wondering if you could tell us what you actually valuing the deal at to get to that warrant valuation? And then secondly, when do you think you would be able to announce some more defense customers, like some other NATO countries, buying capacity on Lightspeed?

Daniel Goldberg

So on trying to extrapolate the value of Lightspeed from the warrant value, we're not going to do that for folks. But you're absolutely right though, the value of the warrants has gone up by more than 50%. That's totally a function of the fact that we got the ESCP-P contract done. We've got this very significant backlog now on Lightspeed. We've been able to accelerate our expectations around revenue and EBITDA take-up commensurate with us accelerating the expansion of the constellation.

And so anyway, I mean, that's obviously a positive sign for the business. It's good news if you're a Canadian taxpayer because of the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec have warrants in the Lightspeed project. So anyway. And I'm no sophisticated financial analysts; you are. You can probably working backwards, make your own calculations about what that might imply for the value of Lightspeed. But we're not going to do it for you. So that was one.

And then on your question about further defense opportunities and when we'd be in a position to announce them, it's always tricky. I mean ESCP-P itself, we laugh about this a little bit, we bid on that originally in 2008. We always knew it was a question of when and not a question of if. If someone had told me in 2008, it would take 18 years, I would have been surprised. But I don't expect the opportunities that we have in the pipeline for Lightspeed to take 18 years. Because given the nature of the world right now, the customers that we're talking to, they want this capability as soon as possible.

And so we are having real, meaningful, concrete opportunities with, I'd say, sovereign customers about using Lightspeed. It's always hard to handicap just how long those things will take. My expectation is, by the end of next year, our backlog will be meaningfully higher because of my confidence, our confidence about converting things that we have in the pipeline today into firm take-or-pay contracts like ESCP-P.

Is it possible to get something more done by the end of this year, recognizing that we're already halfway through August? I don't know. Maybe. I wouldn't foreclose it, but I sure wouldn't telegraph that we've got high conviction about doing that. But we do have a higher conviction about getting that done between now, again, in the end of next year before Lightspeed even goes into full commercial service. So that's our expectation.

But I got to say, we never gave backlog guidance for this year. I think at most, I would have said we expect backlog to be some multiples higher at the end of this year than it was at the beginning of this year. And there, we're very pleased sitting here today, having gotten ESCP-P, we signed the Northwestel contract. We have very positive, significant opportunities still in the pipeline above and beyond the incremental meaningful opportunities with ESCP-P. So we are very bullish about our ability to meaningfully grow backlog from here even before we enter commercial service.

David McFadgen

Would it be possible to squeeze one more?

Daniel Goldberg

Sure.

David McFadgen

So I saw you got that additional loan in GEO sub. What's the collateral for that additional loan?

Daniel Goldberg

So I'd say this, like we're not going to get into the weeds of it on this call, but I will say at the highest level, under our covenant package in the -- and I'm just talking about in the legacy borrowings, so the term loan and the notes that we have out there. We obviously had scope to raise this incremental funding, and so we're pleased to get it done. It just gives us more financial resources to support the legacy business, which here again I think is a good thing for the business.

And I will say this also, we provided some disclosure about this loan in the release and in the financial statements. And in the fullness of time, we'll file the loan agreement as well. And so that will be out there.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Maher Yaghi from Scotiabank.

Maher Yaghi

Great. I have a few. Maybe I'll start with the ESCP-P contract that you signed. Maybe if we can go back. It was great to see the contract being finalized. I wanted to ask you specifically the new satellites that you are going to deploy following that contract being signed, are they in any way different, technologically speaking, in terms of frequencies that they operate under versus the initial 156?

Daniel Goldberg

No, they're identical to the first 156. And what's good about that is they're going to just follow immediately down the assembly line from the 156. So it means that nothing about adding those 69 additional satellites is going to slow down in any way the delivery of those first 156, which is why we're standing behind our target entry date in terms of when we go into global service. And then those next 69 just follow right on from the initial 156. So yes, all 225 will be identical.

Maher Yaghi

Okay. So given this, I was trying to figure out, when I look at the revenue run rate of the program, beyond the initial spike in cash payments upfront, I was wondering, why do you need the new satellites? Because I was trying to figure out the capacity that the new contract is going to consume out of your existing 156 satellites on the Mil Ka-band, which is 25% of your spectrum allocation, it doesn't seem to me like it's going to use up much of that 25% anyway. So why did we move in the direction of putting up more satellites right away instead of waiting after commercial launch and then putting up more satellites?

Daniel Goldberg

Yes. No, it's a great question. And there are a couple of reasons. So one, when we converted the frequency plan for the first 156, absolutely the right thing to do, given all the opportunities we see with defense users and how much demand we expect there'll be for this very advanced Military Ka-band capability. So excited about that.

But at the same time, we took 25% of the frequencies that were going to be available for our commercial customers sort of off the market. And we see huge opportunities there. And we didn't want to reduce our capacity that could support those commercial verticals, like broadband connectivity for the airline industry, broadband connectivity for the maritime sector, broadband connectivity for rural broadband, enterprise users around the world and the like.

And so what was great about accelerating the expansion of the satellites, because we -- our plans were always to have more satellites than 156, we were just going to fund the expansion satellites with the cash flow from the first 156. So it wasn't a view that we won't see demand for that capacity. We just didn't have enough money to grow the constellation as much as we wanted to.

And so with this deal with ESCP-P, we're able to restore the 25% of commercial capacity that we had diverted for the defense market, number one. Two, accelerate the satellites that we always need -- that we always knew the market would need. And then I'd say, lastly, just having more satellites in the constellation means more resiliency, more redundancy, better performance of the network. So it was just a big win-win-win.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Walter Piecyk with LightShed.

Walter Piecyk

Dan, just want to go to the expansion, and specifically Falcon 9. Are these contracted? Because I know SpaceX has talked about stopped taking third-party bookings beyond '28. I assume that that expansion will go beyond '28. So I was just curious if these things are contracted and whether they have to be on Falcon 9 or are you going to look for other launch opportunities?

Daniel Goldberg

So to launch the 225 satellites, we estimate we need 15 rockets. We already have 14 under contract with SpaceX. We had sort of 3, for lack of a better term, surplus rockets that we didn't need for the 156. But when we added the 69, we needed those 3. So those got kind of brought forward. And then we needed 1 more, and so that -- 1 more Falcon 9.

And we like using Falcon 9. Super reliable. They -- obviously, SpaceX launches at a very rapid cadence. We're very focused on getting the constellation deployed as quickly as possible. So that's the right launch vehicle for Lightspeed.

And so we needed 1 more rocket. So we've been in touch with our friends at SpaceX. They've agreed to make that rocket available to us. We're getting the launch services agreement in place to do that. But I'd also note, it's our expectation that all of our launches for all 225 satellites will get done by the end of 2028. So that's the plan.

Walter Piecyk

That's good to know you're locked and loaded. I know I've asked this question many times over the last couple of years. So I suspect I know the answer. But I'm just going to ask again because there's just a lot of talk in the market about SpaceX out looking for additional spectrum. There's companies out there that own spectrum, their stocks are really moving. Any kind of, let's call it, request from potential customers, for you to layer in additional spectrum to the satellites that you've developed before you actually get these launches going?

Daniel Goldberg

So these first 225, we're done. And by done, I mean, the design is done, the hardware has been ordered and satellites are already at MDA's new factory. Like we're going hard down the path. We've got -- and these are great satellites. I mean it's -- and with the right frequency plan with the Military Ka-band, we feel really good about that. So we don't have any scope at this point in time, without taking some massive delay, which we will not do, to make modifications to these 225. So the ship has sailed on those.

For future satellites, and our expectation is absolutely the Lightspeed constellation is going to grow over time. That will be a response to demand that we're seeing out there in the market, but we're very bullish on that. We're already doing a fair amount of work around here as to what our next generation of Lightspeed satellites will look like. Could those accommodate other frequency bands, hosted payloads? Absolutely. But not these first 225.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of James Ratzer from New Street Research.

James Ratzer

Great. Dan, thanks very much for taking the questions. I had a couple, please. Just the first one was just coming back, if we can, to the refinancing coming up. I think you mentioned you wanted to be kind of fair, balanced and consensual. I was reading though the kind of court document from July 27, and that seemed to suggest that you might also be considering a Chapter 11 process as well. So I was wondering if you could just kind of respond to that. Is that something you are seriously thinking about at this stage as one outcome?

And then secondly, just coming on to the USD 120 million of new financing you've just received, can you just let us know where in the stack that ranks? Is it kind of pari passu with the senior debt or the unsecured? So I'd just be interested to know where that sits in the stack.

Daniel Goldberg

Okay, James. The filing -- I'm not sure what you're referencing to -- what you're referencing in terms of drawing a conclusion that we're entertaining a bankruptcy filing. That's not the case at all. Our focus is strongly -- just to say our focus is strongly on refinancing the debt prior to the maturities, achieving a consensual outcome. That's the focus. We're spending a lot of time and a lot of energy to achieve that outcome, number one.

And then on the USD 120 million, where it fits in, here again, like -- on this call this morning, the plan is not to go into the weeds on that. As I said, we'll share more information about that. We've said that the borrowings were made within a non-guarantor subsidiary of Telesat GEO. So we're over there in the legacy debt silo. And as I said also, the loan agreement will get filed and made available. And so for now, we'll leave it at that.

James Ratzer

Got it. You can't say, Dan, whether it is linked to the new C-band proceeds that you know you're going to be receiving? Or is that something that's separate from the new debt you just raised?

Daniel Goldberg

Yes. So there, we -- you're right, I won't say. But I will note that, obviously, having that FCC order come out and Telesat being eligible for those proceeds, subject to our meeting our obligations to clear that spectrum on time, that's obviously a very accretive development for the business.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Quilty from Quilty Space.

Christopher Quilty

Just a follow-up on the ESCP-P program. Is that going to require an incremental ground segment? Or is that something that the existing Lightspeed ground segment, you can sort of lease back to the customer? And just more broadly, where do you sit in terms of the ground segment build-out? And I think you had some past deliberations around bringing in outside financing, or not, for the ground segment. Where do you stand on that?

Daniel Goldberg

Yes, Chris. We're making really good progress on rolling out the ground segment. So we're talking about landing stations here. So we have -- I'm looking at my technical colleague, at least 3 or 4 landing stations already under development here in Canada. And we've been installing the big gateway antennas, doing testing. That's going well. We have announced that we've got some ground stations being built for us in Australia. We did the deal with Orange in France at their Bercenay teleport. So that is being -- what's the word I'm looking for? Commissioned. Thank you, Michel. Commissioned, right now.

So we're making really good progress there. We've been doing testing on the antennas, and we gave Intellian a big contract to build the landing station antennas, and so we've been commissioning those and doing the testing. So that's all going very positively.

As to working with third parties to support the landing stations, yes, I would say absolutely that's something that we're receptive to. And it's something that we've always done. Even our Geostationary, the ground stations around the world that support our GEO satellites, some of those we own, including some in Canada, 1 in the U.S. But many of them, we're relying on third-party teleports to provide this service with Lightspeed.

And by the way, this isn't unique to Telesat. It's what everyone does, including Amazon, Starlink, OneWeb, I believe, certainly, SES, we all make use of third-party teleports. We might own some of the equipment that sits at those third-party teleports, so they kind of host that equipment for us and provide us a service. And we're not thinking about it any differently with respect to Lightspeed.

And there are some real benefits if we work with third-party providers. We don't need to own teleports all over the world. That wouldn't be a good use, I think, of our capital or time. And so we've already -- are working with some third parties in Australia, Europe, I mentioned. We're having some conversations with folks in Asia because we need landing stations there too.

And we're receptive to doing something, I'd say, kind of broader, more comprehensive with one or more third parties, if that's something that would accelerate our rollout, if that were financially accretive, always, of course, provided that they can provide the mission-critical services we need and do it in a secure environment given the nature of the traffic that we'll be supporting on Lightspeed.

Christopher Quilty

And is that something that would likely happen this year or slipping out into next year?

Daniel Goldberg

Well, we're -- I mean, we're rolling out landing stations. We have to, to support our upcoming launches. And so we're -- we've got at least 8-plus teleports, landing stations under development in various stages right now. Some of them are already done, some of them are in flight. We'll be doing more, even over the course of this year. And so yes, we expect to be able to share more information about our plans for that.

Operator

That concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call over to Dan Goldberg for closing remarks.

Daniel Goldberg

Okay. Well, operator, thank you very much. Maybe I'd just say in sum, I mean, we're about 2/3 of the way through the year, and we feel very good about how the business is performing, how we're executing where we reiterated our guidance for GEO.

Last week we announced the largest contract in Telesat's history with the ESCP-P contract. The pipeline for Lightspeed is very, very significant. We have $5.6 billion of backlog at this point in time with Lightspeed. And between the further opportunities with ESCP-P, the other sovereign opportunities that we have and commercial opportunities that we have in the pipeline, we are, I'd say, more bullish than ever about our prospects. The constellation has expanded. It's accelerated. It's fully funded. We have USD 0.5 billion in contingency on support Lightspeed, which we're very focused on not needing to dip into.

The GEO business actually is performing pretty well year-to-date. We actually grew our backlog in GEO this past quarter, which we haven't done for a while. I think that shows some of the resiliency around that business and improved cash flow visibility when we're able to grow it.

Certainly, the announcement by the FCC recently on the C-band process and Telesat being eligible for USD 189 million of proceeds, on the back of the $344 million in proceeds that we received from the earlier proceeding, which gives us confidence that we'll secure this USD 189 million, I think we end Q2 and head into the rest of the year really optimistic and bullish about where the business is going and our prospects.

So in any event, thank you all for joining us this morning, and we look forward to chatting with you when we issue our third quarter numbers. So thank you, operator.

Operator

This concludes today's meeting. You may now disconnect.