Canadian rocket startup launches, aimed at space sovereignty amid global turmoil

OTTAWA — A new rocket startup to be launched Friday says it plans to soon become the first Canadian company to have the capacity to launch medium-payload satellites in space, filling in a potentially important niche in Canada’s defence.

Canada Rocket Company says the turbulence in global politics is likely to increase Canada’s need for a sovereign rocket company that can take domestically-controlled satellites to space.

The Toronto-based company has already raised $6.2-million from the Business Development Bank of Canada, a Crown corporation, and a range of private investors including Toronto-based Garage Capital. Canada Rocket Company says the capital that it has raised is the largest round of all-Canadian seed funding ever for a space and defence startup.

Hugh Kolias, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said company officials are confident that they’re launching at just the right time, as the federal government increases defence spending and recent global turmoil has made many countries take their sovereignty more seriously. At the same time, rocket and satellite costs are falling, while the technology and the number of willing investors are on the rise.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Kolias told National Post during an interview. “Globally, there’s been an added emphasis on space and defence,”

Rockets can play an important role in a country’s security, he said, because satellites are used to deliver a wide range of services, including telecommunications, global positioning, and financial transactions, that are critical during an international conflict. Rockets are used to take satellites to space or to help refurbish them.

Kolias said Canada Rocket aims to become a big player in the rocket industry, particularly targeting the “the missing middle” portion of the market. Many satellites are what the industry describes as medium payloads, typically weighing up to 6,500 kilograms, but customers are often forced to pay rocket companies higher prices if medium-payload vehicles aren’t available.

The Canadian market alone is expected to be worth about $1-billion between 2033 and 2040, Kolias said.

But the medium-payload market is becoming increasingly busy and already includes U.S. players such as Long Beach, Calif.-based Relativity Space, Seattle, Wash.-based Stoke Space Technologies, and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly known as SpaceX.

Jeff Foust, an aerospace analyst and publisher, said any company entering the medium payload market will have “an uphill battle” trying to convince customers that its service is cheaper or better than the Falcon 9. The two-stage orbital rocket dominates its market and flew 165 trips to space last year, Foust said.

Canada Rocket says it expects to be able to able to produce the rocket architecture for light-lift vehicles by 2028 when it will have about 150 employees, and then scale up to produce a medium-lift rocket two or three years later.

The startup is expecting to repatriate a number of Canadians who are working abroad in the space, defence and aerospace sectors. Canada Rocket has just five employees to date but expects to have as many as 1,000 within about seven years.

Kolias said the company is finding that ex-pat Canadians in the sector seem keen to return home. “It’s actually been kind of easy to bring people back to Canada.”

Canada’s space industry plays a niche role internationally. Its largest private player is MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), a world leader in space robotics. The Brampton, Ont.–based company built all three versions of the Canadarm and RADARSAT, an Earth observation satellite.

Other Canadian space companies include Ottawa-based Telesat, Winnipeg-based Magellan Aerospace and Honeywell Aerospace Canada, which has engineering and manufacturing operations in Mississauga, Ont., Ottawa and elsewhere.

National Post

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