Manitoba no stranger to rocket launches, but orbital launches unlikely in the province: professor

Rockets launch from the Churchill Rocket Research Range in 1968. For decades, suborbital rockets were launched east of Churchill, Man., to study the upper atmosphere. (Canadian Space Agency)

Manitoba is no stranger to rocket launches, but launches capable of sending payloads into orbit are not likely to ever happen in the province, according to a University of Manitoba professor.

The comment comes despite what the federal government is calling a historic investment aimed at strengthening Canada’s satellite launch capabilities. On March 16, Ottawa announced approximately $225 million to help advance Canada’s sovereign space launch capabilities.

This includes $200 million for a 10-year agreement to lease a space-launch pad off the coast of Nova Scotia, operated by publicly traded company Maritime Launch Services. The government also announced $8.3 million each for three Canadian companies in the first round of the Launch the North program, aimed at accelerating the development of Canadian-designed space launch vehicles.

Philip Ferguson, an associate professor in the University of Manitoba’s department of mechanical engineering, says Canada still lacks orbital launch capability—the ability to place payloads, such as satellites, into orbit.

“It’s a pretty exclusive club in the world of countries that have orbital rocket capability, and you can count on two hands the number of countries that can do that today,” Ferguson said. “Canada has never launched a rocket that has orbited any payload, ever.”

For decades, Canada has relied on the U.S. and other international partners to launch its satellites into orbit. The federal government, though, says it is hopeful to launch payloads into orbit from Canadian soil by 2028 under the Launch the North program.

“Canada is in a catch-up position … and with the certain geopolitical challenges that we’re facing right now, the trade challenges, and our push to grow our national defence, it’s critical that we invest in launch capability,” Ferguson said.

The associate professor noted that orbital launch capabilities offer a range of benefits, including placing satellites in orbit to support communication and collect data—such as tracking the spread of wildfires or monitoring environmental changes—which can then be transmitted back to Earth.

‘All comes down to geography’

Ferguson, who is also the president of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute, said he is “very optimistic” that Canada will have orbital launch capabilities soon. However, the associate professor added that Manitoba’s geographic location makes it an unlikely site for such launches.

“I’m less optimistic that Manitoba will become an orbital launch site,” Ferguson said, adding that geography plays a major role when deciding launch locations.

“When a rocket launches into space, you don’t want those first few minutes of launch to be going over somebody’s house, because if the rocket has a bad day, then the people on the ground underneath it have an extra bad day,” he said.

“And so unfortunately, because of where Manitoba is, we’re in the middle of Canada, and we’re surrounded by populated land.”

Rocket launches near oceans or along coastal paths help ensure that debris such as stages of the rocket—which are designed to detach—fall into the water rather than over land, he noted.

While Ferguson said orbital rocket launches may be out of sight for Manitoba, he notes the province has had capability in the past to launch rockets at the former Churchill Rocket Research Range—established to study the upper atmosphere.

According to an unclassified report from the Office of Aerospace Research, which once operated under the U.S. Air Force, construction of the research range began in 1956 and was completed in 1957. The move was in support of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), an international scientific program to study the earth and its environment.

The range’s location was chosen in part for the intensity of northern lights and its accessibility by rail, air, and water transportation, according to the report dated 1964. “Then, too, it was a friendly country, and it was a permanent Canadian defence base,” it reads.

The facility, about 24 kilometres east of Churchill, was built by the U.S. Army with support of Canada’s Defence Research Board, the federal government notes.

After launching nearly 200 rockets, the report said the range closed in 1958, but only briefly. Following pressure from scientific groups from the U.S. and Canada citing extremely beneficial results obtained during the firing program, the range was reopened in August 1959.

“The rockets that we have used traditionally in the past, launched out of Churchill, have been these suborbital rockets, so rockets that go up and come down,” Ferguson said. “They don’t have enough energy to stay in orbit.”

Ferguson said the Black Brant rocket, designed in Canada, was the “workhorse” at the site, adding that it’s still being used by NASA.

The site was operated by several agencies over the years, including the Canadian Space Agency, before it closed in 1985. By then, the town of Churchill says over 3,500 suborbital rockets were launched from the range.

Part of the research range’s land and operation building was purchased by the Churchill Northern Study Centre (CNSC) in 1985, an independent nonprofit facility that supports scientific researchers on a range of topics.

Faith Carnegie, CNSC’s program coordinator, said the organization still uses some of the buildings for storage and even operated out of one of the buildings until 2011.

“We can actually still go out and see a lot of the buildings, like the blockhouse, which is where they launch the rockets from, and then multiple launchers,” said Carnegie, who also lives in Churchill.

“They’re all abandoned, except for one—the Aerobee Launcher. Some ravens have claimed it as a nesting site.”

She said the blockhouse was made with three-foot-thick concrete walls to offer protection in the event a rocket exploded at the range.

In 1988, the federal government declared the research range a national heritage site, noting it was “long Canada’s foremost upper atmosphere research centre” with an international reputation.

Akjuit Aerospace, a now-defunct Canadian company, temporarily revived the range from 1994 to 1998. The last rocket launch at the site occurred in April 1998, according to the province.

Ferguson said he believes many people at the time underestimated the impact the rockets and the litter would have on the environment and Arctic ecosystem, particularly along the coast of the Hudson Bay.

“That proved to be a challenge, because parts of these rockets were toxic … and so it was becoming more and more difficult to manage that debris that came out of the rocket program,” he said.

Carnegie said the rockets used to be launched into the Hudson Bay, as well as what is now Wapusk National Park, an important polar bear denning area and one of Manitoba’s two national parks.

In July 2023, the former Progressive Conservative government announced more than $700,000 to support remediation work at the former rocket range.

As for the structures that remain on site from when the launches were conducted, Carnegie said many of them are falling apart.

“The rocket range and the research that happened here is definitely something Manitoba can be proud of,” she said. “A lot of studies happened here.”