Yes.
Evidence of meeting #13 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was satellites.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #13 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was satellites.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Okay. What keeps it from being pulled back to earth? Do you have rockets on these things?
10 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Telesat Canada
It's just gravity. It will stay up there in that orbit, but the satellite, as you can imagine.... Picture an ExpressVu or a Shaw Direct dish; it's this little dish on the ground. The satellite really does have to maintain a very specific spot in the sky.
There are thrusters on the satellite. If you come up to our headquarters facility on Blair Road.... I invite all the members of the committee, if you ever have an interest, and we're only ten minutes from here--come on out. We literally have rocket scientists who work at Telesat, highly specialized engineers trained in orbital mechanics. They maintain the satellite 36,000 kilometres in the sky in a very tight box.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Mr. Chair, I would recommend that we take that offer up seriously. Absolutely. I think--
10 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Telesat Canada
Listen, Telesat is a great Canadian success story. We're very proud of what we do out there. We have a very skilled staff, and we would be delighted to receive folks to come and look at what we're doing.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
So they could answer a lot of these questions, like what's the fuel--
10 a.m.
Conservative
10 a.m.
A voice
Expensive fuel.
10 a.m.
Conservative
10:05 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Telesat Canada
I know it's highly toxic.
No, it's a very specialized fuel and it's very expensive. What dictates the commercial life of the satellite is by and large how much propellant is on the satellite. The satellite lasts roughly 15 to 20 years, unless there's an anomaly, and sometimes there are anomalies, which is why the bigger the fleets you have to manage those anomalies, the better.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
What countries are involved in building these things? I know MacDonald, Dettwiler is--
10:05 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Telesat Canada
MDA has the capability to build--
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
These are Canadian companies we're talking about?
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
10:05 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Telesat Canada
How many are building satellites of the type that we use? Zero.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
10:05 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Telesat Canada
MDA makes components that are on our satellites. Oftentimes, they'll make the antennas that go on our satellites. There's a company called COM DEV that makes certain switching that goes on our satellites. But by and large, for the type of satellite that we require--very large, very powerful satellites--they're made in the U.S. by Boeing, Lockheed, and one of our shareholders, Loral. They're made in Europe by Astrium, which is part of EADS, and Thales, and then the Russians have a capability. The Indians and the Japanese have a capability, but it's a lesser capability.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
So we really don't have a strong presence in construction of satellites, let alone--
10:05 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Telesat Canada
Not of this type. I would say Canada has a reasonably strong presence in terms of space activities. Telesat is a real global leader. MDA is recognized as a global leader, and COM DEV as well.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Who launches these? I suppose countries like France, the United States....
10:05 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Telesat Canada
Yes. The U.S. has a capability, although the capability is now devoted almost exclusively to government missions. For commercial satellites, you're launching either on Arianespace, which is a European consortium, or the Russians have two launch vehicles that they make available. The last probably six satellites that we've launched have been on Russian launch vehicles, and so will the next two, maybe three that we will launch. The Chinese also have the capability, but U.S. export limitations preclude us from making use of the Chinese satellites because almost all the satellites have U.S. technology built in them.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
I just want to ask you, quickly, again, how many kilometres did you say?