In the Canadian space community C6 Launch Systems is a name some may have heard of. Outside of that community, few have heard of them. That was by design. After working quietly for the most part of the last three years, the company is ready to emerge from the shadows and talk about its business.
It’s a business rooted in Canada, but as I learned, very much international in scope.
A next-generation can-do attitude
Recently I had the opportunity to talk at length with Richard McCammon, the President and CEO of C6 who was asked to join the company six months after it started to provide business expertise.
launch vehicle.
As of January the company has five full time employees which includes Daniel McCammon, Richard’s son, who is the vice president engineering.
Daniel McCammon is also one of three co-founders of the company along with Sadben Khan and Tayo Shonibare.
I first met Daniel several years ago when C6 was first launched. He’s one of the emerging next-generation entrepreneurs that’s decided now is the time to build a new space company, and in this case, a launch services business.
He has a Masters in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the University of Toronto and did his undergrad at Ryerson University where he was the Structures Team Lead at the Ryerson CanSat team.
Having talked with many students and recently graduated students, I can say that the Ryerson CanSat experience that Daniel experienced, and similar experiences by students at other universities, has had a significant influence on their career paths.
Combined with what students are seeing from companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and a host of other new space companies, a can-do attitude is emerging.
The focused semi-stealthy company
Richard McCammon has has a wealth of experience, including starting a company and exiting it successfully last fall. Schooled as a chemical engineer, he achieved success in the technology arena with an electronic transaction system his company Delego Software built and which is used in SAP systems. In selling that company last year, McCammon set aside some of the funds from the exit to kickstart C6 into its current operation mode.
C6 was based in London, Ontario until earlier this year, but now has offices in Toronto where everyone works except for McCammon. He’s still in London and works from home.
In my interview with McCammon he wanted me to clearly understand, and convey, that the company is 100% focused on developing a small satellite launcher. Everything they work on is centred around that.
That includes their first contract awarded to them in May 2019 by the Canadian Space Agency for C6 STARS. The $72k they received was for a feasibility study that examined a new “low-cost antenna and transceiver that electronically steers radio signals without having to move the antenna.” They call the new communication system STARS, short for Space Transmission and Reception System. In May they announced they had successfully completed that study.
McCammon also addressed the semi-stealth nature of the company. He said he was worried that people might forget the company if they came out too early and started to talk about themselves. He wanted to wait until they were ready to build a “cadence in announcements” which he hopes will lead to brand recognition.
The small, small satellite launch vehicle
C6 has identified the market it wants to serve. It’s a market that’s not properly served according to McCammon. That market is the nano-satellite sized marketplace. The C6 launch vehicle is being designed to meet that demand and is purposefully maxed out at 30 kilogram for all combined payloads. The sweet spot McCammon said is the 12U size CubeSat, though their vehicle can accommodate up to a 16U CubeSat.
That is a very small payload size, but one which C6 believes it can make money with. Beyond payloads that size, C6 currently has no interest. They see the under 30 kilogram market as being very strong for at least “the next five or six years” and that’s the market they will focus on for now.
I asked McCammon about the competitive landscape. Go to any small satellite conference and you’ll about 100 or more efforts around the world to build new launch vehicles.
McCammon said of these efforts. “If you take a tour of the science fiction launchers out of it, a lot of the new launch are trying to be completely disruptive, and create new concepts for launch vehicles. And that’s fine, and I wish them all the greatest success. But there are challenges when you go to something that’s brand new and hasn’t been proven before. And we’re using, although there’s new elements to what we’re doing, vertical launches, there’s nothing really new. But again, if you take out the science fiction from it, then look at the space that’s 30 kilograms or below. There’s not a lot of people out there.”
And C6’s approach to their launch vehicle includes taking a slightly different path than most. They aren’t designing and building their own engines. Right away, that sets them apart from many competitors. They decided to outsource their engine to US based Ursa Major Technologies. Ursa Major’s business plan is focused on building engines for any company. C6 will be using the Hadley engine, a liquid oxygen and kerosene engine that’s been under development for several years and is now certified for flight.
By outsourcing their engine and designing their launch vehicle to use that engine, C6 believes they can get to market sooner and it saves on development costs.
Their launch vehicle is still in the preliminary design stage, but an integration test using the Hadley engine is being planned at a location still to be determined. The COVID-19 coronavirus is affecting their schedule, and a location for the test will need to take into account the state of the pandemic.
Launching from the UK
Following on the May announcement of having completed their Canadian Space Agency contract, the company issued its second press release in June announcing that it would use the UK based Shetland Space Centre as its primary launch site.
At first C6 was hoping to launch from Canada at the Nova Scotia spaceport proposed by Maritime Launch Services (MLS). But as it turns out that wasn’t an option. McCammon said, “it became relatively obvious that it was going to be challenging to get a launch out of Canada. MLS, we’ve talked to the guys there quite a bit, and they’re focused on, obviously, their rocket, they want to make sure that they get theirs off the ground before anything else. And so they’re really the only site in Canada that is being imagined at the moment.”
It should be pointed out that MLS is proposing to build a spaceport, not a rocket. They have however sighed an agreement with the Ukraine’s Yuzhnoye Design Office as their first customer. Yuzhnoye would supply the Cyclone 4M launch vehicle to launch payloads from MLS customers.
So with MLS seemingly out of the picture C6 began looking elsewhere. It didn’t take long to come across the Shetland Space Centre. Needing a launch site that could accommodate Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) polar launches, the Shetlands 60 degree northern latitude site was ideal. So through a friend of a friend, introductions were made. And by June an agreement was reached and C6 signed a Letter of Intent to use Shetland’s launch facility.
Another factor that made the decision easier was the agreement, also in June, between the UK and the US on a Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA).
C6 has to deal with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) regulations for the Ursa Major engines. That and any satellites from the US it may launch. Now with the UK-US agreement in place, McCammon sees an easier path forward by launching from the UK.
While Shetland Space Centre is the current primary site C6 would like to use, it still needs to be approved by the UK government. Currently the site is capable of suborbital launches and has been used to launch balloons.
If approved by the UK government, up to three new launch pads will be built for orbital launches. One which would accommodate small launch vehicles as imaged by C6. Shetland is planning for up to 30 launches a year.