Space tech CEOs say sovereign launch capabilities could help Canada lead in low Earth orbit.

Canadian rocket builders want Canada to stop hitching rides to space at the discretion of foreign providers, and the federal government has put a significant sum towards changing that.

At the Canadian Space Launch Conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, the founders of three startups—event organizer NordSpace, Canada Rocket Company, and Reaction Dynamics—unpacked what sovereign space launch capabilities truly mean, why we need them, and where they think Canada has an opportunity to lead globally.

“We cannot import something, slap a flag on it, and call it Canadian.”

Bachar Elzein,
Reaction Dynamics

These days, SpaceX dominates the market for sending large payloads to space, while competition among small-lift providers is fierce. On stage, Canada Rocket Company co-founder and CEO Hugh Kolias argued that a gap has emerged for medium-lift launch vehicles, where few companies have been building rockets because “everyone thought that it was oversupplied.”

“The market was sold,” fellow panellist Bachar Elzein, founder, CEO, and CTO of Québec’s Reaction Dynamics, chimed in. “We’ve heard that a million times.”

Medium-lift capabilities are typically defined as launch vehicles that can deliver 2,000 to 20,000 kg—or 4,400 to 44,100 pounds—to low Earth orbit.

With demand expected to grow over the coming years, Kolias argued, “We have a real opportunity to capture a significant share of medium-lift capability on a global basis.”

Part of that opportunity stems from erratic behaviour by the US under President Donald Trump, which has made Canada a more attractive and dependable partner and spurred the country to invest heavily in sovereign tech. 

RELATED: Feds commit nearly $225 million to advance Canada’s sovereign space launch capabilities

The Government of Canada recently committed nearly $225 million CAD to advancing Canada’s sovereign space launch capabilities, including $8.3 million grants each to Canada Rocket Company, NordSpace, Reaction Dynamics.

Fellow panellist, NordSpace founder and CEO Rahul Goel, defined sovereign space launch as the ability to launch Canadian payloads from Canadian soil with Canadian-made rockets. While the rockets themselves are the most important part, relying on another country or foreign firm to provide any of those components or make decisions about them would be a “house of cards,” he said.

“We cannot import something, slap a flag on it, and call it Canadian,” Elzein said. He said sovereignty would mean rockets that are designed, manufactured, launched, and controlled in Canada, without any permission required from outside the country. 

“What we like to say is it starts with sovereignty and then the world.”

Kolias said that continued government support for sovereign space launch capabilities would go a long way towards helping Canada become a leader in the broader medium-lift market. “What we like to say is it starts with sovereignty and then the world.”

Establishing such capabilities in-house could bring broader economic benefits, given the projected growth of the space economy, Kolias argued. “This is our moment to not repeat history,” he added, citing the Government of Canada’s 1959 decision to scrap the fabled Avro Arrow as a mistake not worth recreating.

That marked a fitting comparison, as the event was held at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum against a backdrop that included key components of the Avro Arrow, the original Canadarm, and other historic air and space vehicles and technologies.

For his part, Elzein noted that building rockets is hard, otherwise more companies would be doing it. He also acknowledged that executing on that vision will take a lot of attempts—probably more than he and his peers would like.

With the technical and financial margins associated with sending rockets to space already so thin, Goel expressed hope that policymakers would take steps to ensure that Canada makes launch “favourable, not just possible.”

Feature image courtesy Josh Scott for BetaKit.