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The company vying to build Canada’s first commercial rocket launch pad in Nova Scotia has signed a deal with a German aerospace firm that could see orbital launches by 2028.
Halifax-based Maritime Launch Services Ltd. says Germany’s Isar Aerospace plans to build a dedicated complex for its Spectrum rocket at the Nova Scotia company’s site near Canso, N.S., on the Eastern Shore.
The two-stage rocket is designed to carry small and medium-size satellites into space. The German company, which has already established its first launch site in Norway, has created a new Canadian subsidiary, Isar Aerospace Canada Inc.
“While every nation needs data from space, almost no nation has the end-to-end capability to access it independently,” Alexandre Dalloneau, Isar’s vice-president of mission and launch operations, said in a statement.
“This makes launch capacity one of the most consequential bottlenecks in defence and intelligence today, and we are here to close it. Canada is the next step in our road map to bring full, end-to-end launch capability to sovereign nations.”
Canada does not have the ability to launch space projects on its own and has relied on the United States to get its satellites into orbit. Ottawa has flagged space launches as a key sovereign capability in its new defence industrial strategy. The 2025 budget also earmarked $183 million over the next three years for establishing space launch capabilities.
In March, the federal government signed a 10-year, $200-million lease with Maritime Launch so Canada can send satellites into orbit without the help of other countries or foreign corporations. Defence Minister David McGuinty said at the time that about 20 per cent of the Canadian economy relies on satellites, including banking and telecommunication systems.
Maritime Launch’s project, called Spaceport Nova Scotia, is being developed to provide launch infrastructure for commercial, civil and defence clients and is expected to become Canada’s first commercial launch pad when it becomes operational this year. It will provide Isar with the launch site, an operations centre and more services.
Maritime Launch CEO Stephen Matier says Isar plans to spend about $100 million as a tenant to make its launch pad ready. Isar will begin construction this year with plans for space launches by 2028 and up to 40 launches per year at the site by 2029. The 10-year deal will see Isar pay Maritime Launch $3.75 million US per fiscal quarter once the contract is fully underway.
Matier signed the deal in Turkey on Tuesday during a NATO defence industry summit. He said three of the four launch pads his company is building in its development phase are already allocated between Isar, the federal government and Montreal aerospace company Reaction Dynamics.
He said he’s talking to several other possible clients for the remaining pad and the company is holding back development of a fifth pad for the future.
In March, Canada announced that it planned to become a full member of NATO Starlift, a project to create a space launch network to allow allies to send payloads into space on short notice. Matier said the Isar deal is a great example of companies in NATO-allied countries working together.
“NATO Starlift is about the powers in Europe and North America that are collaborating on just this kind of activity. You know, you have a rocket, you [have] a space board, you have satellite. We collaborate together to make it happen,” Matier said in an interview.
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