Orange and Telesat Commission Europe's First Telesat Lightspeed LEO Gateway
Orange and Telesat have commissioned the first European gateway for the Telesat Lightspeed LEO constellation at Bercenay-en-Othe, France, using Intellian 4 m tracking antennas to support the initial 225-satellite deployment with low-latency, data-sovereign connectivity for enterprise and government users.
On September 17, 2026, telecom operator Orange and Telesat LEO ULC, a subsidiary of Telesat Corporation, announced the commissioning of the first European gateway for the Telesat Lightspeed Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation. Housed within Orange's World Teleport Association Tier-4 certified teleport in Bercenay-en-Othe, France, the ground station will serve as a primary European entry point for space-to-ground data across the network.
For the ground segment architecture, the gateway is linked via a high-speed, secure Orange fiber network to Telesat's planned Point of Presence in Paris, providing low-latency routing for enterprise and government traffic. Bercenay-en-Othe was selected for its operational security certifications, existing ground segment infrastructure, and proximity to major European fiber backbones.
On the hardware side, the gateway incorporates large-aperture tracking antenna systems manufactured by Intellian Technologies (4 m class gateway antennas), maintaining continuous RF links as LEO spacecraft pass overhead. The Lightspeed constellation uses optical inter-satellite links, keeping customer data in orbit until it reaches a landing station or private customer ground interface — reducing terrestrial transit hops while preserving end-to-end encryption and throughput. The station is engineered for the initial 225-satellite deployment, supporting Telesat's planned global in-service date of Q1 2028.
For ground-segment equipment suppliers, the announcement underscores how central LEO tracking antennas, precision pedestals and servo positioning systems have become in global teleport construction: short pass durations and fast-changing angular rates demand far more from a positioner's dynamic tracking accuracy, acceleration capability and reliability than a fixed GEO earth station ever did. Repunite Technology (Chengdu) builds two-axis servo turntables and stabilization platforms for precision pointing of SATCOM, radar and electro-optical payloads. Our Satcom-on-the-Move pan-tilt systems support inertial-navigation tracking and beacon-guided acquisition, offering a proven servo positioning solution for gateway-class tracking antennas and mobile SATCOM terminals alike.
