Canada’s defence department will pay rocket company NordSpace to use its under-construction spaceport in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The news: Markham, Ont.-based NordSpace announced on Wednesday that it signed a 10-year, $20-million CAD facility-access agreement with the Department of National Defence (DND). Under the agreement, DND will be given priority access to the rocket launch pad at the Atlantic Spaceport Complex, which NordSpace is building in St. Lawrence, along the southern coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.
In a press release, NordSpace said the $20-million contract value covers the minimum cost of maintaining the facility and systems over the length of the contract, but not individual missions or launches.
From the source: “A sovereign spacefaring Canada needs the ability to launch a payload into orbit on its own schedule, from its own soil, on its own rocket when national security demands it,” NordSpace founder and CEO Rahul Goel said in a statement. “That capability is only possible if a Canadian company owns the full stack from launch vehicle to launch pad.”
The context: NordSpace is one of multiple spacetech players attempting to secure sovereign launch capabilities for Canada. Sovereign launch is the ability to send objects, like communications satellites, into space without relying on another country. It aims to be vertically integrated, meaning that NordSpace is building the underlying spaceport, the rocket machinery, as well as the satellites to be sent out.
This week, NordSpace said it had entered the second phase of construction on the spaceport, and reaffirmed its goal of sending rockets into orbit by 2028. It has attempted launches of its sub-orbital rocket Taiga but faced technical setbacks, and says it’s waiting for regulatory approval before trying again.
Final thought: As US-Canada tensions have called Canada’s technological sovereignty into question, launch capacity has become a national security concern. In recent years, Canadian companies and the government have mainly hitched rides with US private company SpaceX for satellites. But the Elon Musk-owned company has signalled that paid rides on its Falcon 9 rocket may become scarcer or stop altogether, creating an opening for Canada’s space startups and an incentive for the defence department to work with them.
Feature image courtesy NordSpace.