OTTAWA – Col. Jeremy Hansen launched to the Moon on April 1, the 102nd birthday of the Royal Canadian Air Force—an entity he has been representing since he was a teenager.
The Canadian Space Agency astronaut’s historic Artemis II mission thus represents an opportunity not only for civilian space in this country to take hold of the public interest, but also for the military, speakers said at NordSpace’s second Canadian Space Launch Conference in Ottawa on Tuesday (May 5).
Brig. Gen. Chris Horner, commander of 3 Canadian Space Division, greeted Hansen in person when the astronaut and his three NASA crewmates arrived at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base near Kennedy Space Center shortly after mission conclusion on April 10.
“Looking at Col. Hansen’s trip to the Moon, and back, this year has brought space to the forefront again,” Horner told attendees in a live, virtual appearance at the conference, which was held at Ingenium’s Canada Aviation and Space Museum.
“Capitalizing on the moment of greatness that he has achieved for our country allows us an opportunity to talk about the [space] domain in a different way,” Horner continued.
He urged the military personnel in attendance not to (always) focus on matters such as anti-satellite weapons, targeting systems and similar active issues in opening conversations about space. While these are crucial systems, he asked people to also focus on the benefits – starting with sovereign rocket launch. For example, Horner said the NATO partners are planning to test a hypersonic launch vehicle from the east coast; a meeting of the group is planned in Halifax in June.
“When we have built our rockets, and we are ready to go to space from our own soil, we have the places and the pieces to do that here in Canada,” Horner said of the test, which will evaluate a Royal Canadian Navy radar system for its ability to track hypersonic vehicles, and which will also examine regulatory framework partnerships with NAV Canada (which manages Canada’s civil airspace) as well as Transport Canada.
Sovereign launch serves as an example, Horner noted elsewhere in his keynote, of how space has moved beyond exploration into a “domain of power.” Horner noted a few examples:
- The government’s recent 10-year, $200 million investment in Maritime Launch Services;
- The government-backed Launch the North contest currently funding three Canadian companies to support sovereign launch (more on that below);
- The recently announced Bill C-28 (Canadian Space Launch Act) to streamline sovereign space regulations.
Canada, Horner added, “is at a moment where I feel like we must decide: Do we shape that power? Or do we depend on others to shape it for us?”
In Horner’s opinion, the choice is obvious: to use our country’s geopolitically advantageous northern position and to create a “security environment” that not only extends from the Arctic to cislunar space, but also to leverage and expand partnerships within Canada and with allies. He urged attendees to focus on sovereignty, mobility and access as the tools by which Canada can use space for defence purposes.
Launch the North, and the Department of National Defence’s IDEaS Program
Speaking of Launch the North, in a separate conference session a DND representative provided the government’s perspective on the program, which is funded under the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program.
DND states that IDEaS is “offering grants to selected participants, distributed across three fiscal years to support the development and demonstration of breakthrough technologies.” The already announced recipients, each receiving $8.3 million for Phase 1, are:
- NordSpace’s Tundra Canadian Responsive Scalable Launch;
- Canada Rocket Company’s Canadian Sovereign Launch Capability Development;
- Reaction Dynamics Lab’s Aurora-8 Responsive Launch Vehicle.
By participating in the IDEaS program, “you can build your network, get funding to advance your technology, and get valuable feedback from national defence experts,” said Ahmad Khorchid, director of innovation operations at Defence Research and Development Canada, in his update to attendees at the NordSpace conference.
The goal of the program is to expand the focus on testing and demonstrating early-stage ideas, such as rockets, to close the gap between “testing something successfully and deploying it”, especially with a lens to commercial success.
IDEaS, he acknowledged, is driven in large part by the newly released Defence Industrial Strategy and the funding that is in the ecosystem. But DND is pledging to align public and private capital as part of its framework to support the development of small rockets in Canada to allow for launch as soon as 2028, he said.
Phase 2 of the program is planning to move the selected companies beyond development and “towards more advanced integration, testing and demonstration”, he said. Sovereignty, he said, has to be thought of as “on the horizon”, as a part of the “work that is already underway”, while building out rocket systems.
The risks of investment
But what Canada also needs to understand is the nature of early-stage developmental programs, when investing in high-risk technologies such as rocketry. Sovereign launch is key to access to the north and keeping up with defence obligations, as many panellists said, but rockets are difficult to develop and not without risk.
This is even true of the more famous spaceflight programs in which Canada participates: Artemis II was famously delayed from its earlier launch estimates due to issues with the heat shield, most notably. Engineers and space technicians are well-used to such delays, but the public may not understand that.
Luckily, now that Artemis II is successfully completed — and beyond expectations — it does present a window of opportunity to show what can be possible with the right investment and mindset. But jumping in while the interest is high is key.
A conference panel composed of former NASA chief economist Alex MacDonald, Dominion Dynamics CEO Eliot Pence, and Deloitte Canada space lead Dan Kerry urged immediate action. The panellists raised some of the following things that should be considered in developing sovereign launch.
While the following structural and financial items may not sound inherently exciting to those used to flashy space tech, building this framework is essential to allow for sustainable funding and for sovereign launch, the panellists emphasized. They suggested the government should be:
- Offering more clarity about how the money will be spent for sovereign launch, and creating more flexibility in procurement funding to stimulate launch spending;
- Committing to using at least one of the funded rockets for operational launch, similar to how NASA set up the Commercial Resupply Services program for ISS spacecraft;
- Explaining what services will be purchased, such as payloads, and how payouts will work;
- Providing a pathway from initiation of the funding to the goal, in a way that investment companies will understand to be incentivized to spend money;
- Creating incentives for highly trained workers to stay in Canada, perhaps by creating buzz around a technology or company, to avoid “brain drain”;
- Actually committing to increasing DND spending to 5% of GDP, along with other NATO partners, to increase industrial capability;
- Using Canada’s hallmark approach of relying on partnerships to drive innovation: academia’s research, talent, and private equity, for example, could provide a suitable partner for investment-hungry industry through innovation hubs.