The White House issued a new National Space Transportation Policy on Aug. 20, replacing the country’s 2013 space transportation policy and setting a target of more than 1,000 launches and reentries a year by 2030 — roughly six times last year’s pace of U.S. orbital launches.

The memorandum, National Security Presidential Memorandum 17 (NSPM-17), states that “the United States must establish and maintain space transportation capabilities that ensure access to the full range of orbital regimes relevant to United States interests,” from suborbital and very-low Earth orbit altitudes out to the lunar surface, Lagrange points and deep space.

Infrastructure and regulation

Most of the memorandum is aimed at clearing bottlenecks the government itself controls: range scheduling, new launch and reentry sites, airspace integration and spectrum access. Each comes with its own deadline, laid out below.

AgencyActionDeadlinePresident’s science and national security advisersRecommend on requests to launch or land foreign vehicles in the U.S.60 daysInterior DepartmentIdentify federal land for a new reentry site90 daysState and Commerce departmentsUpdate export policy and controls120 days, then every 2 yearsDept. of War, NASA, Transportation DepartmentSet range-scheduling rules; identify sites for new launch facilities and priority launch corridors180 daysInteragency; Commerce Department and FCCProduce an industrial-base strategy; report on spectrum access180 days, then every 2 yearsCommerce DepartmentDeliver a development plan for the new reentry site240 days

Industrial base and exports

The policy also orders agencies to produce a strategy for the domestic space transportation industry that the memo says should be “vibrant, competitive, and resilient,” with attention to workforce development and retention. On trade, it directs the State and Commerce departments to update U.S. export policy, to promote American space transportation capabilities abroad, and to update export controls “to enable United States export opportunities for space transportation-related capabilities to allies and partners.” Neither the export-policy language nor any other part of the memorandum names which allies.

Where Canada fits

Canada is not mentioned anywhere in the memorandum as one would expect from a domestic policy directive in another country.

Two provisions are worth watching regardless.

The policy requires U.S. government payloads to fly on vehicles manufactured in the United States, with narrow exceptions for no-cost international science agreements, secondary payloads with no domestic launch option, and hosted-payload arrangements. That rule is about where the launch vehicle is built, not where its components come from, so it does not on its own restrict Canadian firms that supply parts or subsystems to American launch providers. It would matter more to a Canadian company trying to build and fly its own launch vehicle for U.S. government business. No Canadian company does that today.

That could change. In March, Canada confirmed its intention to become a full member of NATO’s STARLIFT initiative, a program built so allied launch capacity is never grounded if traditional sites become unavailable. The government picked Reaction Dynamics, developing a containerized rocket called Aurora-8 that can be moved and launched from temporary land or maritime platforms, as one of three companies building toward that kind of on-demand domestic launch, with the program targeting 2028 for initial capability.

A STARLIFT-brokered launch would be exactly the case the payload rule addresses: a foreign-built vehicle carrying a U.S. government payload, regardless of where it lifts off from. One of the rule’s exceptions covers cooperative government-to-government agreements where launch services are provided by a foreign government, precisely the kind of arrangement STARLIFT could become. But NSPM-17 never mentions NATO, allies or STARLIFT by name, leaving open whether that exception would actually apply.

The memorandum also sets up, for the first time, a formal process for reviewing requests to launch or land foreign-owned vehicles in the United States for commercial purposes. Under the policy, the president’s science and national security advisers must recommend a decision within 60 days of getting the necessary information, weighing five factors: consistency with U.S. foreign policy and nonproliferation commitments, the effect on the American space industrial base, foreign investment the applicant has made in U.S. space markets, the liability it assumes, and the effect on federal launch site availability. The five factors give the advisers real discretion over each request. Whether it works for or against a Canadian applicant would depend entirely on the specifics of the request.

What the export-control update within 120 days will actually mean for Canada is harder to say than either the policy’s vagueness or its language about “allies and partners” suggests.

Canada already holds a long-standing exemption from U.S. arms-export rules for defence trade, expanded in 2023. But in December 2025, Washington created a separate, deeper export exemption for defence trade with Australia and the United Kingdom under the AUKUS security pact. Canada was not included in it. Whether the space transportation policy’s export update treats Canada the way it treats AUKUS partners, leaves Canada’s existing exemption as is, or does something else is an open question the policy itself does not answer, and one due to be resolved by roughly mid-December.

There’s another variable at work in this relationship. Canada and the United States announced they had concluded substantive negotiations on a bilateral Technology Safeguards Agreement in August 2024 — the kind of treaty that lets U.S.-origin launch technology operate from foreign soil, and the one Maritime Launch Services needs to bring American launch vehicles to Spaceport Nova Scotia. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly called it a step toward Canada becoming “a global leader in commercial space launch.” Two years on, there is no public confirmation or record that the agreement has been signed, let alone ratified by both countries, a step that must happen before the agreement comes into force.

Canada has separately introduced domestic legislation the launch industry would need. Bill C-28, the Canadian Space Launch Act, had its first reading April 21, 2026, and would create Canada’s first legal framework for launch and reentry: designated sites, permits, and a liability and indemnification regime. The bill’s text does not mention the Technology Safeguards Agreement, the United States or export controls, and neither did the ensuing second-reading debate. Debate opened April 28; the House then rose for its summer recess and returns Sept. 21, when it resumes.

That question also comes against a rockier trade backdrop than it might have a year ago. Washington imposed 50 per cent tariffs on $US 20 billion of Canadian goods on Aug. 22 — none of them touched the space sector, but the timing is a reminder that nothing in the trading relationship can be assumed right now.

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