SAN FRANCISCO / PERTH, 20 AUGUST 2026: LatConnect 60 (LC60) has signed a commercial contract with Transcelestial for an optical communications terminal on its SWIRSAT-1 mission, plus access to Transcelestial’s optical ground station network for space-to-ground data transport and ground station operations.

The agreement covers a terminal designed for rates up to 10Gbps, access to a ground network with two stations live today and five to six targeted by end of 2026, and ongoing data transport and operations. Together these are intended to carry mission imagery from the spacecraft into LC60’s processing and customer-delivery environment following commissioning.

“Earth-observation operators are collecting far more data than they can get to the ground. RF downlink is spectrum-constrained, licence-heavy and expensive per gigabyte. What LatConnect 60 is buying is a high-capacity optical path plus the ground network to terminate it, bought as a service, with no spectrum licensing and no optical ground segment for them to build,” — Dr. Mohammad Danesh, Co-Founder and CTO of Transcelestial

“For an Earth-intelligence mission, the sensor and the data path cannot be treated separately. The mission only creates value when we can move high-volume SWIR imagery from collection to users within useful delivery windows. Transcelestial’s terminal will reduce the time needed to clear imagery from our SWIRSATs,” — Venkat Pillay, Founder and CEO of LatConnect 60

The structure lets satellite operators procure the flight terminal and ground connectivity as a single service, rather than fund, build and licence their own optical ground segment. This is the second Australian mission to use Transcelestial’s optical downlink, following its integration with Gilmour Space. A Transcelestial terminal is already in orbit and commissioned on the 6G StarLab mission, with two ground stations operational in Singapore and Spain and five to six targeted by end of 2026. Transcelestial is scaling to more than 100 optical terminals a month from its own facility, so the ground network can serve many missions at once rather than one at a time.

LC60 is building a very high resolution Short Wave Infra Red (SWIR) Satellite Earth Observation constellation with a vertically integrated chain: sovereign tasking, satellite sensing, onboard processing, analytics and direct data delivery. Its roadmap includes two SWIRSATs launching in Q1 2027 and an 18-satellite constellation by 2029. SWIRSAT is supported by the Australian Space Agency and Government of Western Australia.

Transcelestial will provide the high-capacity transport layer between the spacecraft and LC60’s processing environment, equivalent to dark fibre from satellite to ground, without the spectrum licensing RF downlink requires. LC60 retains mission tasking, data ownership and customer-delivery control, while Transcelestial operates the transport layer.

Why optical, why now

A typical small-satellite X-band link runs at 100 Mbps, moving roughly 5GB in a seven-minute pass, forcing operators to compress imagery onboard at a cost to power and fidelity. The same pass moves roughly 50GB on Transcelestial’s 1Gbps optical service, and roughly 500GB at 10Gbps.

Optical links are also harder to intercept: the beam is narrow and directional, so interception requires physical presence in the beam path, and the link isn’t exposed to broadband RF jamming. Transcelestial’s post-quantum cryptography, in production since March 2026, adds quantum-resistant protection at the application layer on top of that hardened optical path.

Network diversity supports availability: with optical ground stations in multiple locations, weather closing one station simply routes the downlink to another, or a short wait for the next window. Within a pass, adaptive data rates and forward error correction raise throughput continuously as the geometry improves, rather than dropping to a fixed fallback rate. As LC60 scales to 18 satellites, the same network absorbs added missions without new ground infrastructure.

About Transcelestial

Transcelestial builds laser communications hardware and operates the ground network to use it, spanning satellite-to-ground downlink, inter-satellite links and terrestrial point-to-point connectivity. With active ground stations in Singapore and Spain, 100+ terminals produced monthly, and four missions planned over the next 12 months, the company is building a constellation of LEO satellites to act as an undersea cable replacement in space.

Media Contact:Simran Pant: simran.pant@transcelestial.com, transcelestial.space 

About LatConnect 60

LatConnect 60 (LC60) is an Australian AI and Earth observation company delivering satellite intelligence across defence, agriculture, carbon and resources. LC60 owns its AI models and satellite technology, with its proprietary SWIRSAT constellation launching in Q1 2027.

Media Contact: Arvind Rampal: arvind.rampal@latconnect60.com, www.lc60.ai