Telesat launched its LEO-3 demo satellite back in July 2023. But it is now suffering problems with its on-board thruster. Telesat informed the FCC on February 2nd that it would not now be able to de-orbit the satellite at the end of its mission.

The Ottawa-based operator is building a fleet of satellites for its Lightspeed constellation, although LEO-3 was not a pathfinder or demonstrator of the planned technology (Lightspeed has a different builder). “The Telesat Lightspeed satellites now being built are of very different design and do not use the same thruster as LEO 3, for example,” says Telesat.

Telesat says that it first tried to implement the thruster on October 20th 2025 but was unsuccessful. It says it has attempted multiple times to restart the thruster but without an adequate result.

“It has now been determined that there is a permanent, physical fault in the emitter section of the thruster,” says Telesat’s letter to the FCC.

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Tags: LEO, lightspeed, telesat