Kurtis Broda is co-founder and COO of Wyvern, an Edmonton-based company that captures high-resolution images of Earth from space.
A week before Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen left for the moon on April 1, the Canadian lunar rover mission was cancelled. Days later, the Lunar Gateway—an international space station that was intended to orbit the moon as part of the Artemis program—was paused, putting the future of Canadarm3 in doubt.
Canada has sent an astronaut to the moon while the industry that should be powering its future in space is shrinking. Despite continued government investment, Canada’s space sector generated 25 percent less revenue in 2024 than it did in 2014. A key reason, identified in RBC’s recent Higher Orbit report, is clear: the government rarely buys from innovative Canadian companies reliably enough for those companies to grow.
The $1-billion Canadarm3 contract with MDA Space tells part of the story. The cancellation of the $43-million Canadian Lunar Rover—a mission actually built around emerging Canadian companies—tells the rest.
The wrong bets
MDA is one of Canada’s most capable aerospace companies. But the Lunar Gateway was a flawed program before Canada ever signed on. The concept was built around NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket that had accumulated more than $23 billion USD in costs since 2011, running 140 percent over budget at $4 billion per launch, and that appeared to be kept alive largely by congressional politics rather than operational merit.
The Lunar Gateway gave SLS a purpose. However, when SpaceX’s Starship offered a cheaper path directly to the lunar surface, NASA shifted strategy, and Gateway became irrelevant. Canada had already committed $1 billion to MDA for an arm to service a station many in the industry doubted would ever be built. That bet is now on pause indefinitely.
Canada has sent an astronaut to the moon while the industry that should be powering its future in space is shrinking.
The Canadian Lunar Rover was different. A sovereign mission built in Canada, led by Canadensys Aerospace, with a supply chain spanning over 30 Canadian companies and universities—including Mission Control, an Ottawa firm developing AI-enabled autonomous navigation for lunar environments. By cancellation, the rover project had reached Phase C of development, approaching critical design review. This wasn’t an early concept; it was a mature mission caught in a government-wide budget review and killed while the $1-billion arm for a paused space station stayed on the books.
Canadensys noted they are now in discussions with American and European partners to apply five years of Canadian-funded development work to foreign lunar programs. Canada paid for that knowledge. Other countries will benefit from it.
This is what the structural problem looks like in practice. An anchor customer is a consistent government buyer—one whose procurement is reliable enough that companies can hire, invest, and scale around it. NASA plays this role for the American space industry. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) largely does not. The Lunar Rover was one of the rare cases where it was. Thirty Canadian companies had a government buyer, a real mission, and a path to building exportable capability. Cancelling it doesn’t just lose a mission, it removes one of the only working examples of the model.
A more focused CSA
These project cancellations create a political window that won’t stay open long. The goal is concrete: make the CSA a reliable anchor customer for innovative Canadian companies, not just an occasional one. Two changes would move the needle.
First, change how CSA buys. This will require more than the CSA—it needs a mandate from the federal government. The Department of National Defence’s Launch the North challenge is already doing exactly what CSA should be doing: outcome-based, competitive funding awarded to Canadian companies like NordSpace, Canada Rocket Company, and Reaction Dynamics, with companies advancing on demonstrated performance rather than legacy relationships. NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program works the same way, and it’s why commercial companies like Intuitive Machines and Firefly have landed lunar landers on the moon. CSA should adopt the same approach across its mission portfolio: buy Canadian capability, not Canadian hardware, and let companies own the assets and grow from there.
Canada paid for the knowledge. Other countries will benefit from it.
Second, build on the CSA’s flagship innovation funding program—the Space Technology Development Program (STDP). This program is the primary pathway in which the CSA contributes a portion of funds to private companies to conduct research and development. STDP has funded real innovation—over 80 percent of recipients, which include Wyvern, are small and medium-sized companies building genuine capability. But there is a structural gap between a successful STDP grant and a government procurement. A company builds something that works and then has no formal pathway to get it purchased. Canada needs a continuity mechanism that bridges that gap, pulling proven technologies into sovereign missions and procurement. The rover was doing this organically. It shouldn’t take a flagship mission to make the connection.
Canada’s space future
Jeremy Hansen is returning from the moon right now. Back on the ground, the engineers at Canadensys, Mission Control, and NordSpace are still building. They didn’t stop when the rover was cancelled. They’re talking to American and European partners, competing for foreign contracts, developing the capability Canada paid for. The question isn’t whether these companies have a future in space. They do. The question is whether that future is Canadian.
The opinions and analysis expressed in the above article are those of its author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of BetaKit or its editorial staff. It has been edited for clarity, length, and style.
Feature image courtesy NASA.