LONGUEUIL, QC – The unofficial word of the day at Wednesday’s Space Canada Horizons conference was “sovereignty”. Every presentation seemed to have the word in it, and for many, it was the core premise of the speaker’s talk. This was especially true of the Defence-themed presentations from Brigadier-General Christopher Horner and Brigadier-General Brendan Cook of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
But it was a talk from Catherine Robin, Director of the Canadian Geodetic Survey and Chief Geodesist from Natural Resources Canada, who revealed a surprising single point of failure that many in the crowd had not considered, with a word many might be unfamiliar with: geodesy.
The invisible infrastructure
Several talks in the day spoke on the obvious gaps in Canada’s space infrastructure and Canada’s sovereignty. We can’t launch from Canadian soil: obvious. We rely on an American-made GPS satellite system: obvious. We need to build more hardware in Canada: obvious.
But Catherine Robin shed light on the not-so-obvious: “So in terms of invisible infrastructure, we probably have the most invisible infrastructure that enables space and that is required to do space.” This topic is gaining global urgency; Robin pointed to a UN Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence study (PDF) released less than two weeks ago that examined modern society’s total dependence on this unseen geodetic foundation.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term – as I was – Geodesy is “the science of measuring the Earth’s size, shape, orientation in space, and gravity field on a dynamic Earth” says Robin. There are standard measurements that stay constant: speed of light, length of a second, mass, etc… But geodesy is different. The Earth is dynamic and changing, and the Canadian Geodetic Survey maintains the changing standards of latitude, longitude, elevation, and gravity.
Surprisingly, this precise data is what keeps our space operations humming. Robin continues, “Every rocket launch, every satellite operation needs to know what’s happening to the Earth because it’s orbiting around the Earth or flying off of it. In order to do that, you need to load up every day changes to the Earth orientation parameters.”
Currently, Canada’s entire space industry relies on external, non-Canadian data for these critical orbital parameters. There is zero Canadian contribution to these parameters, meaning the nation is completely reliant on the rest of the world. What happens if a nation shuts off that data tap?
“These inputs are global, non-substitutable, and largely invisible to decision makers. It’s essentially a single point of failure,” says Robin.
Sovereign gaps and lost capabilities
This vulnerability is compounded by major infrastructure gaps across the country. Robin highlighted that northern Canada lacks adequate Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiving stations. Because of harsh conditions, many existing northern stations are dormant and only transmit data once a day rather than 24/7.
Furthermore, Canada has actively lost capability in this space. Canada previously ran a Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) program—a crucial technology for geodesy—but it was shut down in 2006. This regression means there is a massive network gap over Canada, creating a sovereign vulnerability that degrades the entire global system.
The time to act is now
This is a solvable problem, claims Robin.
“We can fix that by putting a couple of geodesy stations […] They’re basic geodetic techniques that should all be co-located in one spot and would give Canada the opportunity to be part of the calculation of those daily orientation parameters […] We are the only G7 country also without one of those stations, and many non-G7 countries have quite a few.”
Robin’s aim with her talk was to raise awareness of this invisible infrastructure. Even in a crowd of seasoned orbital spacecraft providers, it appeared some didn’t know this was an issue. Fortunately, the gap is getting targeted attention: two major upcoming studies—one from the Canadian Council of Academies and another funded by the DRDC—will examine the links between sovereign space activities and geodetic infrastructure, with results expected in the fall of 2026.
Robin concludes, “If you’re worried about where this is, that would be a very helpful role of Space Canada and the space economy. Realize this dependency and really advocate [and] you try and make that single point of failure a bit more robust.”