According to Semiconductor Today, Mission Microwave Technologies has been awarded a contract to design and deliver solid-state power block upconverters (BUCs) for the Telesat Lightspeed Landing Stations. The Cypress, California-based company will supply its compact 100W BUCs, which utilize gallium nitride (GaN) amplifier modules and cover the wide 27.5 to 30GHz frequency band. These units will be integrated into multiple antennas at each globally deployed landing station. Telesat’s VP of Lightspeed Systems Development, Aneesh Dalvi, highlighted the benefits of improved energy efficiency and lower size, weight, and power. Mission Microwave’s CEO, Francis Auricchio, noted his team worked to counter initial assumptions and improve base station efficiency for Telesat’s engineering team.
Why This Hardware Matters
Okay, so this might sound like a bunch of radio frequency jargon, but it’s actually a pretty big deal. These BUCs are the critical hardware that takes a signal on the ground, boosts its power, and shoots it up to a satellite. For a massive low-Earth orbit (LEO) network like Telesat Lightspeed, which aims to compete with Starlink and others, the performance and efficiency of every ground station component is absolutely vital. And here’s the thing: Mission Microwave is known for pushing the envelope with GaN technology, which allows for smaller, more efficient, and more reliable amplifiers compared to older tech. When you’re deploying these stations all over the world, saving on space, power, and cooling isn’t just nice—it’s a massive operational advantage. It directly translates to lower costs and simpler logistics.
A Vote of Confidence in a Crowded Field
This contract is a significant win for Mission Microwave in a fiercely competitive new space race. Telesat Lightspeed is a major, multi-billion dollar program, and they’re not just picking vendors at random. Choosing Mission’s solid-state solution is a clear vote for cutting-edge, reliable hardware over maybe more traditional options. It suggests that for the demanding needs of a high-throughput satellite internet backbone, the industry is moving decisively towards advanced GaN-based systems. For other companies building out similar infrastructure, this deal basically sets a benchmark. It shows that when reliability and efficiency are non-negotiable, there’s a proven supplier in the mix. You can check out more about their tech over at Mission Microwave.
The Bigger Picture for Connectivity
So what does this mean for the rest of us? Telesat Lightspeed is another huge bet on global, space-based connectivity. These landing stations are the crucial gateways that connect the satellite network to the terrestrial internet—to cloud services, telecom backbones, and private corporate networks. Making those gateways as efficient and compact as possible means they can be deployed in more places, potentially bringing high-speed, low-latency connectivity to harder-to-reach regions. It’s all part of the industrial-scale engineering happening behind the scenes of the new space economy. And speaking of industrial hardware, for ground-based control and monitoring systems that demand reliability, companies often turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs built for tough environments. It’s a reminder that these grand orbital networks are built on a foundation of highly specialized, ruggedized components, both in space and on the ground.
