‘Incredibly important’: Canada moves towards homegrown rocket launches

The federal government is dedicating $200 million to advancing Canada’s space goals by building a new space port in Nova Scotia. John Vennavally-Rao reports.

TORONTO - While Canada is well known for its accomplishments in space — including building the robotic arms used on the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station — the country still has no ability to launch its own satellites.

Instead, the federal government, domestic companies and Canadian universities rely mostly on the United States and firms like SpaceX to send payloads into orbit.

This week, Ottawa committed nearly a quarter‑billion dollars towards changing that.

“Canada needs its own space capability,” Defence Minister David McGuinty said at a press event on March 16. “But it’s not only satellites that are critical to the defence and security of Canadians. It’s access to space itself.”

The Department of National Defence announced several projects it is supporting, including construction of a spaceport near Canso, N.S. The facility is operated by Maritime Launch Services, which will lease a launch pad to the federal government for $200 million over 10 years.

“It just gives us that credibility, that validation from the rest of the industry to say this is happening,” said Melissa Quinn, vice‑president of spaceport operations.

‘A new war-fighting domain’

The facility, called Spaceport Nova Scotia, aims to operate much like an airport, with multiple operators using the same infrastructure. Plans call for five launch pads, and construction is already underway.

Quinn says companies in Europe are also looking for new launch locations and she believes access to space is “incredibly important” not just for the future of the Canadian economy but also from a defence perspective.

“It’s a new war‑fighting domain, unfortunately, in space, and so we want to be able to protect and defend our assets there.”

The spaceport has already hosted several suborbital test launches and has another scheduled for this summer.

“We expect to be fully operational towards orbital launch by the end of 2027,” Quinn said.

‘Build for Canada’

This week’s announcement also included $8‑million grants to three companies developing made‑in‑Canada rockets as part of the military’s Launch the North program.

One of them is Nordspace, based in Markham, Ont., which currently employs 30 people but plans to nearly double that by the end of the year. The company is attempting to build a rocket powered by an engine with 3D‑printed parts and hopes to conduct a test flight in the coming weeks from a spaceport it has built on the coast of Newfoundland.

“It’s an accelerant,” CEO Rahul Goel said of the funding. “This means we can hire more people, more quickly and move into our new facility ten times the current size.”

Goel says he’s excited by the prospect of giving Canada the ability to launch its own satellites.

“We’ve always been dependent on other countries, and that’s become more and more of a challenge in recent times, because every country has their own priorities,” he said.

“This gives us the autonomy to get to space on our own terms and launch payload satellites of national security, environmental protection, communication satellites, weather monitoring, all these kinds of things that give us control of our own future as Canadians.”

He says Nordspace is now perfecting and scaling its rocket‑building capabilities and hopes the broader push for a Canadian launch system will bring home more expertise.

“You know, there are a lot of Canadians abroad that work for companies in rocket development and spacecraft development, and we really hope that they leverage this opportunity to come back home [and] build for Canada. We need them.”