NordSpace is putting $10 million into its Atlantic Spaceport Complex in St. Lawrence, Newfoundland and Labrador, with half of it the company’s own capital and half from two government partners.
The announcement was made this morning by Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Honourable Lin Paddock, Minister of Jobs, Growth and Rural Development, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The government of Canada will contribute $1 million from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s (ACOA) Regional Economic Growth through Innovation (REGI) program and $4 million will be contributed from the government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
NordSpace broke ground on Space Launch Complex 02 in 2025 to build a pad for suborbital and small payload orbital missions. It will host the inaugural flight of the company’s Taiga rocket.
Work is starting separately on Space Launch Complex 01, which NordSpace says will support orbital launches no earlier than 2028. That pad is meant for Tundra, which the company says can carry up to 1,100 kilograms to low-Earth orbit (LEO), and a heavier variant, Tundra+, rated at just over 2,000 kilograms.
NordSpace is also developing Tempest, a future reusable medium-lift launcher it says will carry more than 5,000 kilograms to LEO. The spaceport is being designed to fly all three vehicles: Taiga, Tundra and Tempest.
“Our commitment is to build a company that is sovereign itself, to support a sovereign Canada,” Rahul Goel, NordSpace’s chief executive and founder, said in the release. “This investment in the Atlantic Spaceport Complex is a seminal moment for the nation.”
Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy, the federal government’s blueprint for domestic defence manufacturing, names space as one of 10 key sovereign capabilities and flags space launch as a priority within it. NordSpace’s own supply chain follows that model. It designs its rockets, builds its engines at a Markham, Ontario, factory, and tests propulsion in eastern Ontario. Launch is from Newfoundland and Labrador.
The company says the project will create engineering and manufacturing jobs in rural Newfoundland by 2028.