After the Government of Canada publicly announced last week it would support commercial space launch in Canada, Steve Matier, CEO of Maritime Launch Services (MLS) first comment to SpaceQ was that he was “sincerely humbled by what has started.”
In an interview with SpaceQ, Matier provided some context, a little of the backstory, and what’s next.
What started as a small study in 2016 for the State Space Agency of Ukraine to find a suitable location in North America to launch a medium class rocket culminated last week with Canada officially supporting commercial space launch from Canadian soil.
“This started with a study in 2016 looking at locations around North America with a little bit of seed funding, and a little bit of background from my years with NASA, and years working with the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Group to basically figure out how to solve the site as a location. And I kept thinking back to that, because it was, you know, it was such a small thing we started, and (now) I’m looking around this room (Canadian Space Agency headquarters), and I am seeing, you know, hundreds of people, and I’m seeing 10’s of thousands of hours, I’m seeing millions of dollars, and seeing the leadership of an entire country stepping in and embracing this opportunity,” said Matier.
While it was the State Space Agency of Ukraine that got the ball rolling, it could have turned out a lot different. After all, this isn’t the first time someone wanted to develop commercial space launch and a spaceport in Canada. What’s different is the tenacity, experience and vision of Matier to see it through to this point. There are many times he could have quit. There were those in government, including some who support this now, who didn’t support it at the beginning. Matier pushed and pushed, adapted, and wasn’t even the CEO when the venture started.
He stated that one of the reasons this effort has been successful to date was that when he talked to all levels of government that he stressed this was a commercial endeavour and there were reasons why it should be a commercially led effort.
“This is a commercial launch site. And that rings so true. And it’s so important because when you look at you know, Vandenberg, Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Wallops Island, you know, Kouru, all these governments RSO’s (range safety officers), they’re all government ranges, how can we be a commercial space industry when the satellites are commercial, the launch vehicles are commercial, but the launch site isn’t. So we’ve cracked the code, how to make a fully vertical commercial space industry that includes the launch location.”
I asked him if they were still on track for a suborbital test launch this year and what’s next. His answer was unequivocal. “We are marching towards a phase one suborbital launch later this year, trying to get that off as soon as possible and working with Transport Canada on on that development.”
And now that the government has signalled how it’s going to handle launch regulations for now, Matier discussed what that means for them. “So that is really exercising the initial regulations Nav Canada, Transport Canada, airspace, waterways control of public access, how can we work together to build this right? So it’s a crawl, walk, run scenario. So the crawl is a first suborbital Canadian launcher, Canadian launch site, Canadian soil, Canadian waterway.”
He said they would then move towards “a small orbital launcher that adds to that, okay, now we can fold in MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime), we can pull from an international client, we can fold in the in-orbit deployment of a satellite and the international norms and treaties that have to be followed for that, and all those aspects of it. And while we’re doing that, of course, we’re building out for that full, medium class launch capability to arrive and do that first launch in 2025.”
The first suborbital launch that could happen later this by Reaction Dynamics. They Tweeted after the event last week saying “Reaction Dynamics is proud to play a unique role in this ecosystem as the first all-Canadian orbital launcher, from design to launch, said Bachar Elzein, CEO and CTO of Reaction Dynamics.” They also said that “Reaction Dynamics’ Aurora-1 rocket is currently in the testing phase, with a first demonstration flight planned as early as 2023.”
As mentioned earlier, Ukraine started this process in 2016 with the study, and while it was mostly Matier and his team that got the effort to this point, the Ukraine is still an important player in the effort. They will be providing a medium class launch vehicle in the Cyclone 4M. Matier also has plans for other launch vehicles, but the Ukrainians have been good partners and continue to support the effort.
As the Ukraine is currently at war with Russian who invaded almost 11 months ago, I asked Matier how they were proceeding on their end. And it should be noted, they aren’t just involved in providing the launch vehicle, MLS has contracted with them to help design the ground infrastructure necessary to support the launch of the Cyclone 4M. Matier could not get into too many specifics, but did say “we are working on the Interface Control contracts right now” and “we’ve we’ve got the facility people through a PDR (Preliminary Design Review) / IDR (Initial Design Review) level at this point, what we need to do now is to get that interface control between our specialty support equipment and the ground and especially to support equipment in the launch vehicle. So that’s what we’re working on with Ukraine right now as the ICD (Interface Control Document).”
And while the government is onboard now, there’s still plenty of work, and obstacles left before a first launch can happen. In particular, MLS needs more financing to get through its phased approach.
Matier said on financing, “you know, clearly behind the scenes with our investor network, we’ve been telling them about all the great government support. And you know, ostensibly, they believe me, they know we’re working hard, they believe us, but having the government come out today, and publicly embrace it and state that they are they are supportive of a commercial space launch from Canada certainly gives a significant level of comfort to the people that have financed us to date, and looking forward to the near future for additional financing.” MLS is traded on the NEO Exchange and the stock did rise slightly after the announcement with volume picking up.